For those who don’t know, the hit cartoon show South Park aired a two-part episode satirizing several celebrities, including Tom Cruise, and religious figures such as Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad.

Even though creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker censored the image of Muhammad, the episode stirred up a lot of controversy. The internet site Revolutionmuslim.com posted threats against Matt Stone and Trey Parker, which included that both writers would become like Theo Van Gogh who was killed by extremists in 2004 for making a short documentary on violence against women in some Islamic societies.

The site advises readers to pay the writers a visit at their homes and the Comedy Central office. The site does list the addresses of both writers.

What stirs up the most controversy is that Comedy Central bleeped out a final speech that took place between the characters Kyle, Jesus Christ and Santa Claus. Was it for the protection of both writers or a form of social commentary about the situation?

These threats should be taken seriously; there is no way to know how serious a threat it is until it is too late.

What’s more surprising than bleeping out the 35 second speech is that it did not mention anything about the Prophet Muhammad.

This is all about fear and intimidation.  The question revolving around this issue is, at what point is a person willing to give up their right to free speech in order to protect their own safety.

This type of question also ties into the familiar question that Americans face today of how much privacy they are willing to give up in order to stay secure.

These are all questions that as students at Stony Brook we do not have to deal or think about too much just yet. As we get older however this is the world that we are entering into and we must decide for ourselves where our personal boundaries are between our rights and our safety.