The University of Kentucky Student Government Association recently passed the resolution entitled, “Tolerance and Acceptance of the Islamic Faith and All Faiths.” The resolution noted that SGA, “does not support the ideas published by the editor-in-chief of the Kentucky Kernel regarding the Islamic faith.”

SGA failed to say what exactly they were refusing to support, but made it clear that they regarded Editor-in-Chief Wright’s article as intolerant of Islam. As the only group on campus representing the viewpoints of secular students, including former Christians, Muslims and Hindus, the UK Secular Student Alliance felt a need to respond to this important development in the conflict.

The most noteworthy critic of the original column by Wright is the Muslim Student Association (MSA) who wrote a response to the piece referring to his comments as “bigoted,” and said that insults directed at Muhammad are to be considered hate speech and thus not permissible. This is very similar to calling for blasphemy laws to be instituted, which are not healthy for a free society.

It is unpleasant to defend Will Wright’s piece simply because it wasn’t well-written, and was for the most part a regurgitation of Pew Research numbers with neither analysis and nor substantive suggestions about how the Muslim community should go about moving away from destructive interpretations of the Quran.

Additionally, the piece failed to make the distinction between the extremist views often held in the developing world and the much more liberal views held by the majority of American Muslims.

Wright’s piece, to its credit, mentioned that colonization and repression has played a role in extremist interpretations of the Quran favored in Islamic countries, though this was a point that badly needed to be expounded upon.

For all of the shortcomings in Wright’s article, it is inappropriate to silence Wright by calling his writing “hate speech,” followed by calling on UK administration to condemn him, which SGA obliged to do, to some extent.

Although poorly executed, the article by Will Wright was a criticism of specific, extreme religious ideas. Whether extreme or not, no idea should be above criticism — especially major world religions — and being offended does not trump freedom of speech and press, which are cornerstones of a free society.

With that said, our organization stands in solidarity with the MSA for the rights of Muslims to practice their faith openly, freely and without persecution. We understand the value in being free to practice the faith of one’s choosing — even if that amounts to choosing, as many of our members have chosen, to have no faith at all.

Additionally, our organization believes that the best way to combat misunderstandings about Islam is by confronting inaccuracies directly, as the MSA did when writing in response to Wright’s piece in the Kernel.

However, there is still a great deal of ground that has not been covered regarding the accuracy, or inaccuracy rather, of claims made by both critics and apologists of Islam. It would be advantageous for Muslims to refute  these misunderstandings in a public forum.

The Secular Student Alliance would certainly do all it could to help in this endeavor so that we might have, as Wright called it, “an honest discussion about Islam.”

The University of Kentucky Secular Student Alliance is a student organization that seeks to promote the voice of non-theistic students, and give them a voice in public discourse.

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