Shame on you, Judge Martin. Shame on you.

I saw this today.

In short: A person was in a parade with a "zombie Muhammed" costume on. A Muslim immigrant in the crowd attacked him. A judge (who happens to also be Muslim) dismissed the
case against the assailant entirely.

His words:

Having had the benefit of having spent over 2 and a half years in
predominantly Muslim countries I think I know a little bit about the
faith of Islam. In fact I have a copy of the Koran here and I
challenge you sir to show me where it says in the Koran that Mohammad
arose and walked among the dead. I think you misinterpreted things.
Before you start mocking someone else’s religion you may want to find
out a little bit more about it it makes you look like a dufus and Mr.
(Defendant) is correct. In many Arabic speaking countries something
like this is definitely against the law there. In their society in
fact it can be punishable by death and it frequently is in their
society.

I find this very disturbing. It highlights the recent saying that
"radical atheists say that radical theists kill people, and radical
theists kill people". The person in the parade was actually doing no
physical harm to anyone whatsoever, and was not, in fact, doing
anything illegal whatsoever. The attacker, on the other hand, not only
broke the law but was given carte blanche to do it again in the future
whenever something is deemed "offensive" to them.
Do I get to walk up to Jehovah's Witnesses in my neighborhood and
whack them on the head with a crowbar because I think their religion
is offensive on many levels, or put one of Fred Phelp's whelps in a
box because their homophobia is borderline hate speech? Of course not.
I would rightfully be put in prison for such a thing.

Imagine a judge saying:

Having had the benefit of having spent over 2 and a half years in
countries who have legal homosexuality I think I know a little bit
about homosexuality.
In fact I have a copy of the Katrina weather reports here and I
challenge you sir to show me where it says that "goddidit to punish the gays".
I think you misinterpreted things.
Before you start mocking homosexuality you may want to find
out a little bit more about it it makes you look like a dufus and Mr.
(Defendant) is correct. In many other countries something
like this is definitely against the law there. In their society in
fact it can be punishable by death and it frequently is in their
society. "

Can you imagine making a ruling that something is okay because
intellectually and socially backwards societies elsewhere on the
planet punish the same crime by DEATH? What kind of logic is that?
Shame on you, Judge Martin. Shame on you.