President Barack Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Tuesday and sent confusing messages about free speech at a tenuous moment for international blasphemy laws.
The Obama administration, by most accounts, has been very strong in fighting UN “defamation of religions” resolutions over the past four years. But the administration’s response to the inflammatory video, Innocence of Muslims, has been muddy just at a time when the momentum for blasphemy resolutions is growing again.
The U.S. State Department and various religious freedom groups celebrated last year when the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) didn’t introduce a “defamation of religions” resolution at the UN Human Rights Council for the first time in about a decade. The resolutions, which passed annually and criminalized blasphemy, were nonbinding but helped legitimize oppressive blasphemy laws in Muslim...