Religious idiot acts like an idiot: sues poet for blasphemy

Here's the whole story (it's a short one) from the Middle East Times.

Egypt cleric sues poet for comparing God to cop

April 16, 2007

CAIRO -- A senior Islamic cleric is taking a writer and a culture magazine editor to court for offending Islam after writing a poem comparing God to a "traffic policeman," a judicial source said Sunday.

Sheikh Youssef Al Badri, of the government Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, together with 18 other plaintiffs, is suing poet Helmy Salem and Ahmed Higazi, the editor-in-chief of the culture publication Al Ibdaa, for "blasphemy" and "offending the divine being."

The plaintiffs complained of the "insolence of the writer to portray God as a traffic policeman."

So, there are still places in the world where a poet can be sued for blasphemy. Whatever happened to reason, enlightenment, freedom? Egypt has earned a top spot on the Big List of Backward Countries Stuck in the Intellectual Dark Ages right next to Saudia Arabia, the United States under George W. Bush, and Canada under Stephen Harper.