I've been meaning to get to this story all week, and I do apologize for my slack blogging. Sometimes real life intervenes.

Last summer I wrote some things about Islam that people went totally nuts over. I was written up in the National Post as a bigot in an echo chamber - though the idea of an echo chamber was totally wrong, given the amount of people who were so vociferously disagreeing with me. I put up with incoherant commenting from people who either didn't know english, or who were too unintelligent and foaming to string words together properly. I dealt with an in-box full of death threats from all over the world. And I thought "So be it." I didn't expect the world to agree with me. I didn't expect a bunch of yes-men, even if this is my own private site. I could have switched off the comments or required registration. I could have put up a list of arbitrary rules that would have stifled my readers and visitors right to their own opinion.

So imagine how sad and disgusted I was earlier this week when I read that Dean Esmay had shut down discussion and criticism at his own site. I wasn't a regular reader of Dean's, so it didn't affect me very much. But one of my fellow Cotillion sisters, Jane, has bowed out. She isn't anti-Islamic the way I am, but she doesn't like being told that she can or can't write something a certain way if she so chooses. Dean's own wife, Rosemary, has walked away from his blog, because she does believe we are in a clash of civilizations, and will not be silenced by his arbitrary rules.

Dean is now effectively blogging to hear his own voice. He has told his commenters that they must either walk in lockstep or leave. I won't do that to you. There have only been a few people that I've needed to ban because they were sick bastards or they were threatening. I object strongly to many things about Islam, including categorizing it as a legitimate religion instead of a cult. You have the right to object to me.

Labels: Blogging, Islam