Whether or not you are cheering for or yelling against today's "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day," it is critical to take a moment and reflect on the importance of freedom of speech.

On this increasingly popular day, we have harnessed the opportunity to showcase the importance of freedom of speech, and raise awareness without being offensive.

Click here to see how intolerant radical Muslims are by asking – Can Your Religion Take a Joke?

Pass this video on to your friends and family. Take action. Celebrate freedom of speech by raising awareness today.

I am sure most of you have heard about the latest South Park drama. Basically, creators Matt Stone and Trey Park depicted Mohammad in a bear costume in the 200th episode of the show. They said that the joke was that he had to be in a suit because they couldn't portray him otherwise. As it turns out they basically received death threats anyways. Now, the site revolutionmuslim.com that initiated the threats has now been hacked. Sounds too funny to be true? It gets better. Now an organization called "Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor" have announced that May 20th will be Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. In the poster below you can see that their goal is to water down the pool of targets and defend the first amendment. First off all, this is an extremely creative way to stand up for freedom of speech. We should continue to look for creative and smart ways to get our point across. However, is it possible this is going to far? Can we come up with a better way to protect our rights and freedoms without being offensive?

Bus ads in Miami offer support to those interested in leaving Islam. The ads went up and then were quickly pulled down as CAIR claimed they were anti-Islam. After a week of controversy, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller announce a "major victory for free speech and religious freedom."

Is this sort of advertising anti-Islamic, to say, "Fatwa on your head?" Does it assume that all Muslims live in a situation where their families are threatening them?

Below you can discuss whether or not this bus advertisement is appropriate.

The rise of Islamic extremism is putting increasing pressure on Christians in Muslim countries, who are the victims of murder, violence and discrimination. Christians are now considered the most persecuted religious group around the world.

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In many countries through the Muslim world, religion has gained influence over governmental policy in the last two decades. The militant Islamist group Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, while Islamist militias are fighting the governments of Nigeria and the Philippines. Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen have fallen to a large extent into the hands of Islamists. And where Islamists are not yet in power, secular governing parties are trying to outstrip the more religious groups in a rush to the right.

While there are both Muslim and non-Muslim countries on the list of offenders, a review of the report shows that a majority of the countries where Christians are persecuted are member states of the Organization of the Islamic conference (OIC).

According the OIC website, “The Organization is the collective voice of the Muslim world and ensuring [sic] to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony among various people of the world.” [italics added] The contradiction between this claim and the facts on the ground is straightforward.

Against this backdrop: In October, the Christian Science Monitor reported on the OIC’s push in the UN for a legally binding international treaty against blasphemy. This is in addition to the resolutions they regularly pass—successfully—on the issue. In 2006, the IHEU noted that another OIC anti-blasphemy proposal would have given justification for Muslim violence—as in the Mohammed cartoon riots several years back—without actually promoting human rights.

The recent study shows that there are a number of OIC states who support inter-religious reconciliation. However, against the backdrop of the anti-blasphemy measures in the UN—along with years of persecution of religious minorities—it’s apparent that the majority are less interested in “peace and harmony” than in promoting an Islamist agenda which could ultimately impact our free speech at home, while the plight of religious minorities worsens around the world.

From a humanitarian rights perspective, it’s not hard to be moved by the—at times brutal—suppression of the opposition movement building in Iran. For those of us who cherish freedoms like speech and self-determination, it’s not hard to be moved by the images of people killed in protests, and the reports of academic institutions being cleansed of suspected agitators.

At the same time, it may also be easy for some of us to say that these events, half a world away, don’t personally impact our lives. We may then excuse ourselves from any meaningful involvement in the cause. In a recent Op Ed, scholar Mehdi Khalaji shows that this thinking is mistaken. He points out that the regime’s current foreign policy is directly tied to the unrest in the country; this includes negotiations on their nuclear program. Khalaji writes:

[Supreme Leader] Khamenei's foreign policy is now completely subject to how the domestic situation in Iran develops. As recent months have shown, he will consider a compromise with the West only when he loses his certainty that all is under control internally. It is like a seesaw: Khamenei's domestic weakness changes the balance of Iran's foreign policy…

Support of human rights and democracy in Iran is not only a matter of morality. It should be a strategic priority for the West. Empowering the Iranian people means weakening Khamenei and his military allies. And a weakened Khamenei is more likely to compromise on the nuclear front.

You can read the full article here.