This is the full version of a statement submitted to Conservative Review‘s Nate Madden.  See also resident scholar Immanuel al-Manteeqi’s piece on the same topic.

Prominent Jordanian writer and activist Nahed Hattar was fatally shot on Sunday morning as he walked into one of the country’s courts, where he was being tried by the government for sharing a cartoon “provoking sectarian rifts.” The cartoon showed a jihadi in bed with two women, ordering God to fetch more wine. While many in the country saw the cartoon as mocking God, the intent of the cartoon was the show how Islam has manipulated the after-life into a brothel with God as a footman.

The reason Nahed’s death is more shocking than others who have been executed under Draconian blasphemy laws is because Nahed simply shared the drawing – he didn’t even draw it himself.  It shows us the depth of intolerance in regressive Muslim communities, even if that community is Jordan – a country hailed as being one of the few beacons of the Muslim world. However, no society is truly progressive, stable, or capable of taking on the tide of Radical Islam unless it can champion free speech. For Muslim countries, it is the ultimate litmus test because it will require challenging Islamic law, and in doing so recognizing that Islamic law is failing a modern world that values liberty and universal human rights.

For Americans at home, it’s important to know that the mindset pulling the trigger isn’t an “over there” problem. Every day, countless critical thinkers in Islam – including Muslim Reformers like myself – are shamed, harassed, and threatened for the Constitutional values we espouse. Just last week after speaking freely at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Radical Islam, CAIR (a so-called civil rights organization spearheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood) launched a sensational attack piece on me for criticizing Prophet Muhammad through a historical lens. The equivalent of a social media “drive by,” that attack has put a real target on my back.

As long as America allows speech to be censored under a manipulation of the First Amendment and under the illusion of tolerance, America is not that different from Jordan in the challenges it faces. American can no longer rally the Muslim world toward liberty and democracy, and not identify the cracks within its own walls. In the face of blasphemy laws, America’s first duty must be to identify and prosecute organizations and individuals who invoke the blasphemy mindset here at home.