THE trouble with the West is that we have forgotten that some things are sacred. We find it so difficult to comprehend the reaction of the Muslim world to that ham-fisted Danish cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist because our churches stand empty, our faith is weak and our God has left the building. The idea that this is still a Christian country is laughable. We may haul in the local vicar for weddings and funerals, but that's about it. We worship our idols -celebrity and money, the sex lives of the rich and famous - but the Good Book is about as relevant to most of our lives as the ration book.
Christianity is widely mocked. The feeble humour of the Jerry Springer opera whipped up some half-hearted controversy, but nobody really cared beyond a few Bible-bashers considered to be humourless spoilsports.
Once this was a Christian country, back when we were all singing two hymns a day at school and fretting about burning in hell for our sins.
When I was a child, we could all chant the Lord's Prayer by heart. Do the Vicky Pollards of today know the Lord's Prayer? Can't see it, myself. So I feel an instinctive sympathy for Muslims who still hold to the belief that there is such a thing as blasphemy.
The Muslim community say that those puerile Danish cartoons should not have been printed, and they are right. It would not have been censorship or the curtailment of free speech to not print (and reprint) the offending cartoon. It would have been basic human decency. It would have been cultural restraint at a time when tension between the West and the Muslim world is higher than it has been for centuries.
I have read a number of commentators say that they would "defend to the death" the right of some crappy little Danish paper to print their nasty little cartoons.
But if I am going to die for a cause, then it is going to be a better one than the right of some Scandy cartoonist to print offensive rubbish.
If we are going to argue with Muslims, then let it be about something worthwhile.
The attitude of Islam to women. The attitude of Islam to gays. The attitude of Islam to Israel, which is routinely threatened with extermination by everyone from Hamas to the leader of Iran to mad mullahs with spit on their beards in Finsbury Park.
Printing that cartoon was supremely stupid. Muslims have a right to live their lives without seeing their religion vilified in a way that is designed to cause hurt, anger and offence.
What Muslims should never have the right to do is what they did on the streets of London on Friday. Around 500 demonstrators marched from the Regent's Park mosque to the Danish embassy, carrying the most sickening placards I have ever seen in my life.
On the streets of the city where Londoners were murdered and maimed on July 7, the pinhead protesters carried slogans boasting: "Europe, you'll come crawling when mujahideen come roaring" and "Behead those who insult Islam". On the same streets where four terrorists committed mass murder, a placard gloated: "Europe you will pay - fantastic 4 are on their way".
A toddler, 20-month-old Farisa Jihad, was dressed by some moronic adult in a hat that sneered: "I love Al-Qaida".
And they got away with it. Nobody was arrested for these sickening incitements to murder. Nobody was charged for spewing slogans of hate that gloated about the dead and broken bodies of July 7.
And that offends me. That offends me to the core of my being.
Responsible Muslim leaders have already condemned the appalling placards. But it happened. And I can't think of any thing more likely to create real loathing for Muslims. I can't think of anything more likely to make the BNP a real force in British politics.
I can't think of anything more likely to make the average British citizen - whatever his colour - ask: Whose country is it anyway?
MUSLIMS deserve the respect accorded to all our people. They take their religion infinitely more seriously than we do, and we should understand that. And if they want to burn down a few empty Scandinavian embassies in Syria because of crass depictions of the Prophet Mohammed, then personally I couldn't care less.
But when someone starts carrying placards in my city gloating about 9/11 and 7/7, when men with big mouths start promising death and destruction, when you tell us that we will be massacred if we offend you, then our tolerance is pushed to breaking-point. Muslims deserve to have their faith respected.
But if they want a Muslim country, then perhaps they should go and live in one.