Mormons and Muslims

The HBO channel showed an episode of Big Love this past Sunday night in which a segment of the Mormon endowment ceremony was depicted. This is a very important ritual for Mormons and it is held within the precincts of a temple, where all but faithfully practicing Mormons are excluded. Although the details of the ceremony have been publicly available for some time, the LDS church holds the rites to be sacred and secret, not to be revealed to outsiders, much less witnessed or recreated.

HBO knew this, went ahead and showed the episode and then disingenuously apologized to any offended Mormons.

Mormon reaction has been to criticize HBO, some Mormons have cancelled their subscriptions. Angry, but entirely within the traditions of American civility.

I cannot help but wonder how HBO would act were the religious sensitivities at issue those of Islam.

And how Muslims would react were their now famously sensitive feelings offended? Would there be a higher level of enacted anger?

Would it be paranoid or cynical of me to opine that since the Mormons are a white, Christian and American religion, that they may be offended with impunity, but that nonwhite, foreign Muslims would have to be carefully kowtowed to?

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