I've read a few things lately that have started me thinking.  My thoughts are kind of rough and disjointed and I'm having difficulty putting my finger on exactly what it is that I'm thinking, so I thought I'd write here to try to make sense of it all and also to get other opinions.  It's a lot of seemingly separate ideas that I feel are connected.

• A Christian girl being sent to prison for blasphemy in a Muslim area for destroying a Koran.  Reports vary on the age of the girl and her mental state.
• Although this is older news, Everybody Draw Mohammed Day
• Native mascots for sports teams
• The use of dream catchers or yin yang symbols by people outside those religions/cultures (as well as other religious symbols and items)
• Religion based sex toys such as the "Baby Jesus Buttplug"  (I'm not kidding...it's real)
• The secularization of Christmas symbols (many of which were originally Pagan symbols, of course)

That's just a short list of some of the things that either started me thinking about this OR that came up in my mind when I started thinking about it.  I think it started when the same person shared two posts on facebook.  One was about the Christian girl being charged with blasphemy and he (an atheist himself) made a comment about how wrong it is to have blasphemy laws anywhere because people should be able to believe whatever they believe.  The other was about cultural appropriation of Native items and symbols and he (also a Native) commented on how offensive it is.  It made me start to wonder if these are mutually exclusive thoughts, or if there is some logic to it, or if there is some line at which respect for someone else or a group of people is crossed.  

Clearly there are extremes in the two situations because a girl going to prison isn't the same as simply saying "People shouldn't do that."  Maybe the issue at the heart of this is whether things should be illegal or simply part of the rules of good manners.  It seems to me that the central issue here is the same, though, and that issue is having our deeply cherished beliefs or history or culture disrespected by outsiders.  

How about "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day?"  It's blasphemous in the Islamic faith to create images of Mohammed, so respecting others would dictate that we don't draw pictures of Mohammed.  At the same time, though, some people who have drawn Mohammed have received death threats for doing it which started other people drawing Mohammed to make a point.  Is it ok?  On the surface it seems harmless enough, but is it ok to disrespect an entire religion to make a point to a few who go overboard?  

How about Native Mascots for sports teams?  That's an interesting one.  I especially love it when people supporting the right to have Native mascots talk about the importance of the team's tradition to have the mascot while ignoring the Native people's objection of the mocking of their traditions.  BUT...and there is always a but...is it always mocking?  I don't know.  SOmetimes it obviously is; Red Skins is a derogatory term, for instance.  Chief Wahoo is an insulting charicature.  What about names like Chiefs or Braves, though?  Are they still offensive, or are they the equivalent of names like Kings and Knights?  

On to the religious and cultural symbols and items.  I know non-Buddhists who have yin yang symbols in their homes and even tattoos of them.  They have them because they like the look of the symbol and because they like the meaning of it.  Dreamcatchers really make me question things because there is so much disagreement about them.  They were originally Ojibwa but other Native groups started to make them and use them in the 1960s.  Is this cultural appropriation from one Native group to another???  Some groups maintain that they are sacred objects and should be treated that way while others produce them and sell them or visit classrooms of non-Native students to teach them how to make them.  The same is true for a variety of masks and totem poles.  Some feel that it is disrespectful and destroying their culture while others feel that it's perfectly fine.  As an outsider, what am I to do or even think?  I put a Dreamcatcher in Rachel's room when she was having nightmares; did I do something wrong when I did that?

Meanwhile, in Christianity things seem to go in the opposite direction.  Instead of protecting religious symbols, they are flaunted and commercialized.  People wear crosses and rosaries as jewellery.  They dress up as priests, nuns and monks for Halloween.  Does Christianity maintain its position of power because it permeates everything or is Christianity watered down by all this secularization?  What does it mean when everyone has a Christmas tree, but a lot of them aren't Christian?  I've had Hindu, Sikh and Muslim students ask me to do Secret Santa every year.  The Celebration of Christmas has obviously taken over the Message of Christmas.  Is this the kind of disrespect that other cultures and/or religions are trying to avoid by keeping their sacred stuff sacred?  The early Christians appropriated many of today's Christian symbols from Pagans to increase their reach and it led to Christianity gaining power; it led to a spreading of the religion and also a lot of changes to it.  It seems the choices are to give it to the masses to see what happens or to hold it close and never let it change.

What happens when the masses get their hands on sacred symbols?  We get the Baby Jesus Buttplug.  Here's the website for a whole host of mostly Christian based sex toys: http://divine-interventions.com/religioustoys.php  The responses to these will range from hilarious to horrifying, but it's still the same issue of respect...isn't it?  Is it ok to make and/or buy these or not?  Does it make a difference if the person in question comes from a Christian background or not?  

I don't want to keep going all night, but there are other things that connect here: Pussy Riot's prison term (as well as any other time people have been jailed for protesting), flag burning, teaching evolution and land bridge theory in schools despite the objections of religious groups who are offended by them and so on.  There is a wide continuum here from blatant disrespect and even oppression at one end to being able to disagree and express our points of view.  Is it wrong when a person from one culture genuinely feels a connection to part of another culture and makes use of that part with no intent to offend but rather to enrich his or her life?  Where, if there is a line at all, is the line drawn?