I take it back (sort of)

Someone responds to my letter to the Irish Times about 'the cartoon':

Madam, - "The cartoons are racist," declares David Manning (February 9th). Perhaps he would care to state what "race" he is talking about.

While we can pick and choose and chop and change our religious beliefs, each of us is stuck with his/her race, ethnicity, DNA. That is why lampooning someone's religion is acceptable, but ridiculing his/her race is not. - Yours, etc,

TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin.

My response:

For Tony. I was wrong to use the term racist. But, if it is unacceptable to ridicule someone for their race, why is acceptable to "lampoon" someone for their religion? Should anyone feel they have to change their religion because of others professed notions of them. Perhaps the labeling of 1.2 billion people as terrorists doesn't have an adequate term. Thankfully if they don't get the joke they can always get a new religion?