It's not making fun of Islam just to make fun of Islam. Making fun of Islam is not the main purpose. That's just a means to an end. The purpose is to stand in s

It's not making fun of Islam just to make fun of Islam. Making fun of Islam is not the main purpose. That's just a means to an end. The purpose is to stand in solidarity with those who offended, and rebuke those who use violence and threats of violence to impose their views on others. The fact that Islam is being made fun of is incidental, coming about only because that was the action that incited the threat in the first place. The main message that is trying to be conveyed is not "Islam is silly," but rather "We will not be cowed by death threats." I wish there were ways of communicating the latter without conflating it with the former so we didn't have to wade into that mire of offending innocent Muslims. Unfortuantely, the death threats being rejected in the latter are issued for making the former statement, so the two statements are inherently entangled. If there were a better and less contentious way of making the point, I would support it, but I haven't seen one and can't come up with one myself. The one thing I don't like about the whole thing is that taking action is taking sides in a conflict, and that implicitly accepts the conflict as valid. I don't like dichotomous reasoning in general, and I disagree with the whole Islam vs Western Secularism conflict in specific because I think they're less incompatible than partisans of either side want to realize. In this particular incident though, I think I disagree with radical Islam more than I disagree with the conflict as a whole, so I'm tempted to take a side for once.