First, I want to thank the many readers who responded to my request for their opinion on whether the Danish cartoons blamed for Muslim riots—which have resulted in 12 deaths and extensive damage so far—ought to have been published in Canada. The overwhelming response was that we must not surrender that decision to violent thugs.

But the issue has since been pre-empted by a Canadian university's student-supported campus newspaper publishing a grossly anti-Christian cartoon. My first reaction to news of the cartoon portrayal of Jesus in the University of Saskatchewan student newspaper The Sheaf was mixed: disgust and pity.

In February The Sheaf explained that it would not reproduce the (rather tame) Danish cartoons out of consideration for the sensibilities of Muslims. But a month later the same newspaper exposed its own hypocrisy and anti-Christian bigotry by printing a gross cartoon clearly intended to be offensive to Christians.

As a Christian, I was deeply offended by a description of the cartoon. I cannot even quote the description, it is so vile.

But at the same time, I also felt sorry for the faculty of the U of S: they must surely have cringed when they realized how such puerile attempts at humor—below the level of garbage scrawled by barely semi-literate punks in public bathrooms—reflects the degraded state of 'higher' education in Canada.

If this is what passes for "intellectual comment" on Canada's campuses, our nation is indeed in deep trouble!

Of course, the administration of the university must discipline The Sheaf's staff, and the student government must de-fund the newspaper… not as an act of 'censorship', but to inculcate the precepts of civil dialogue, as an important part of the students' education. And The Sheaf's faculty advisor (if it has one) must also be reprimanded—by loss of tenure, at the very least.

However, the U of S students' education can also be significantly advanced if they notice that the reaction of the Christian community has been to express their objections in letters, rather than calling for decapitations.

I'd like to further enhance that differentiation by inviting the editors and cartoonist to participate in a dialogue about the factual foundations and relative contributions to society of various religions—including secular materialism and atheism, which are also religious world-views. Without knowing the foundations of western culture, civilization and democracy, who can possibly be considered "educated"?

Such a dialogue would quickly illustrate that all religions are not alike, and therefore do not all merit the same degree of respect: the UK Navy, for example, erred egregiously a few years ago by conferring "religious" status—and the right to ship-board worship services—to Satanism, which degrades and destroys, rather than ennobling and liberating.

Christianity, on the other hand, holds that all people—because they are made in the image of their Creator—deserve respect, regardless of their religious error or ignorance.

That tenet of civilized discourse was blatantly ignored by The Sheaf.

It's also important to note that the offense, in this case, is about the content and intent of the cartoon, not its mere existence; while the manipulated and violent response of the Middle East rioters—most of whom had never seen the Jylland-Posten cartoons—was to the mere fact that they purported to portray Muhammed: it was an attempt by radical Islam to impose upon a non-Muslim nation the Wahhabi doctrine that their prophet should never be depicted. No matter how.

Last February in Montreal, Dan Romano was aggressively set upon by Muslim demonstrators because he was carrying a placard illustrated with a portrait of Muhammed—it appears, in fact, to be a reproduction from a well-known medieval Islamic tapestry!—and his placard praised Islam's prophet and the religion he founded. But Wahhabi law says their prophet cannot be portrayed; the Islamists who hassled Mr. Romano were attempting by street violence to impose Islamic Sharia Law—in Canada. That's unacceptable.

University of Saskatchewan President Peter MacKinnon, in an internal message to the campus community, stated: "In the February 23 edition of the Sheaf, the editors explained that they would not publish the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. It is surprising that they did not exercise similar restraint in their decision to publish 'Capitalist Piglet' in the March 2 issue of the paper. This is a cartoon that is certain to cause distress to members of our community. It has divisive shock value only and does nothing to advance the understanding or debate for which universities should be distinguished."

The paper's production manager, Liam Richards, told LifeSiteNews.com that printing the cartoon was "not an editorial decision but a mistake that resulted from a miscommunication." Does anyone really believe that? I don't. And when asked if the paper would accept any further submissions to the paper from the student responsible Richards said the paper was still discussing the matter. In short: they plan to duck, and hope the whole issue will just go away.

But if they would enter into a dialogue comparing the truth, historicity and impact of various religions, that would be a response in keeping with the traditions of free enquiry for which universities—originally a Christian institution, let it be noted—used to stand.