And quite rightly, too:
Full disclosure: Five years ago, when I was battling Canada’s “human rights” commissions to restore free speech to my native land, Richard Dawkins was one of the few prominent figures in Her Majesty’s dominions to lend unequivocal support. He put it this way:
I have over the years developed a dislike for Mark Steyn, although I’ve always admired his forceful writing. On this issue, however, he is clearly 1000% in the right and should receive all the support anybody can give him.
Let me return the compliment: I have over the years developed a dislike for Richard Dawkins’s forceful writing (the God of the Torah is “the most unpleasant character in all fiction,” etc.), but I am coming round rather to admire him personally. It’s creepy and unnerving how swiftly the West’s chattering classes have accepted that the peculiar sensitivities of Islam require a deference extended to no other identity group. I doubt The Satanic Verses would be accepted for publication today, but, if it were, I’m certain no major author would come out swinging on Salman Rushdie’s behalf the way his fellow novelist Fay Weldon did:
Just why Dawkins, who doesn’t apparently believe in free will, thinks the nanny state is a problem, is unclear. But who cares?
The fact is, loyal Canadians fought one mother of a battle and got Section 13 of the Human Rights Act, under which Steyn was dragged through multiple courts for questioning Islamic influence repealed. Wonder whether anyone other than the Danes will match that. Maybe not the Americans.