The liberals were right: our civil liberties are slowly disappearing now that George Bush is president.  Of course most of the liberals not only seem to approve of these infringements on our freedoms they initiate them——all in the name of the highest ideals of liberalism.  Political correctness and sensitivity and all that.  And all in the name of religion.  But only one religion——Islam.

Yep, its those cartoons again. Mustn't see them because they are oh so disrespectful, so hurtful. And of course they cause riots. Recently the lack of freedom to view these cartoons occurred in the in one of the main centers of American liberalism——New York.   And now a major bookstore chain got religion.

Borders and Waldenbooks have refused to display and sell the April—May issue of the magazine Free Inquiry because of those dreaded cartoons. 

But what inspired this sudden religious sensitivity?

"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday.

Hmmm, just what could she be implying by that disingenuous excuse?   Viewing these images of Mohammed would ruin one's eyesight?  Nope.   Borders and Waldenbooks are succumbing to terror and prattling about their respect for the first amendment doesn't change it.

"We absolutely respect our customers' right to choose what they wish to read and buy and we support the First Amendment," Bingham said. "And we absolutely support the rights of Free Inquiry to publish the cartoons. We've just chosen not to carry this particular issue in our stores."

Let Borders know how you feel about their lack of your "right to choose what (you) wish to read and buy..."  Hopefully they will then finally get their priorities straight.
 
Ethel C. Fenig   3 30 06

Update: It gets worse!

Little Green footballs has a follow up on Borders' reverential fear of Islam.

I work for Borders Books and after reading the article you posted on Wed. 3/29 about our company not carrying the magazine due to it showing the dreaded cartoons of blasphemy, I thought I should write with another tidbit of information I learned about my company the other week.

I was shifting rows of books in our religion section and it happened to be that all of our Koran books (a section on its own) ended up on the bottom shelf. The next day I was informed by my General Manager that it is Borders policy as a whole (not my particular store) that due to complaints in the past from Muslim customers, we are not allowed to put our copies of the Koran on any shelf other than the top.

When I heard of this I became so infuriated that the company I work for (and I do love working for it) has caved in to Islamic pressure and is still continuing to do so. I love my job and my company but it does deeply disturb me to see what is happening to it.

Perhaps Borders customers of the diverse religions that make up America can demand that their religious holy books receive equally respectful treatment; top shelf, eye level display only.  But then again most of these believers aren't that bigoted believing as they do in America's tradition of freedom of religion and lack of censorship.

Borders' apparent lack of respect for these fundamental rights is enough to make me an ex Border customer.

Ethel C. Fenig