Censorship or Good Common Sense?

Overly sensitive religious people bug me. They have no problem saying someone is bananas for believing a grilled cheese sandwich looks like the Blessed Mother, then they bow down and genuflect because she really did appear in the sky to certain South American children.

It's all the same mumbo-jumbo, whether you're an ignorant Texan or an educated New Yorker. Religion equals ridiculous most of the time.

Whether we are pointing out the fallacies and inconsistencies of your precious L. Ron Hubbard, Muhammad, Jesus, or Moses - get over it. Beliefs really are all the same. Look it up.

I don't like the idea of anyone catering or pandering to the small-minded who are disguised as pious. Such pandering gives way too much credit to a vocal minority whose insecurity, ignorance, and fear should be crushed under the weight of our intellectual and moral superiority.

Asra Nomani is one of my favorite writers/thinkers today and I agree that this is troubling. Sherry Jones wrote a book about one of Muhammad's wives, Aisha, and Random House has canceled its publication amid a firestorm of controversy.

"I'm devastated," Ms. Jones told me after the book got spiked, adding, "I wanted to honor Aisha and all the wives of Muhammad by giving voice to them, remarkable women whose crucial roles in the shaping of Islam have so often been ignored -- silenced -- by historians."

But, like everything, there is another side to the story. As a former history teacher, nothing boils my blood like writers/filmmakers/journalists who take the story of a real person and mold it to fit their own particular vision or agenda.

Braveheart, The Last Temptation of Christ, those ridiculous Ann Boleyn stories, etc.

A truly talented author doesn't need to piggy back off a famous person, whether he or she is a modern marvel or someone who lived over two thousand years ago. Tell the story factually, sure, but don't pretend to write about them when really you're just using their name and reputation to sell your book.

If you are going to take a real person and put them in your creation, then you have a responsibility to stick to the facts. You should not invent a plot twist, bedroom scene, or anything else just because the story itself doesn't stand on its own. Criticize anyone you like, but don't make up details about real people, using their real names, and hide behind the label "historical fiction."

Then you'll have more than just the fundies after you. You'll have historians pissed as well.

And historians are a whole lot scarier.