This past spring, Comedy Central censored the image of the Muslim prophet Mohammed in an episode of South Park. The network’s decision came in the wake of the Cartoon Intifada, in which riots broke out around the globe after a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting Mohammed.

Recently, in the second installment of an extensive two-part interview, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone discussed the controversy. Trey Parker said:

“This is South Park, and we rip on absolutely everyone in really horrible, terrible ways. And if you’re saying that this is the one thing we can’t do, besides Tom Cruise, because they’re threatening violence, well, then, I guess that’s what everyone should do. Then if the Catholics don’t want us ripping on Jesus anymore, they should just threaten you with violence, and they’ll get their way. That’s why it is such a slippery slope and such a dangerous path to go down.”

Matt added, “I think, too, it was a disappointment because, like Trey said, when that thing flared up in January — we’d actually talked about doing the Mohammed cartoon episode before because those [cartoons] were about a year ago that came out in Denmark. So we’d actually talked about it before it hit the fan in January. When it did, we had this idea where we wanted to show Mohammed’s image, but completely not offensive, just a guy standing there. And that was going to be the point.

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Matt and Trey learned the ridiculous reality that they can show Jesus defecating on George Bush, but they can’t show Mohammed. Matt said, “That’s the point. It’s open season on Jesus.” Trey added, “Yeah. You can do anything you want to Jesus.”

The appeasers at Comedy Central, Viacom and elsewhere are teaching the world a dangerous lesson: if you want your preferred religious figure to get any respect, you’ve got to be willing to kill people to do it.

(Hat tip: Bridget Johnson.)