You can create your own stamps if you didn’t know. You can put whatever you want to on them! Well… almost.
Recently I attempted to use one of the many (4 actually) service partners of the United States Postal Service (USPS) to create a fun postage stamp for sending out post cards and birthday presents to friends. It appears that I accidentally depicted the Prophet Muhammad (the dude that founded Islam) when doing so… which is a no-no.
I’m not sure how such a miscommunication could have taken place. I clearly made a cartoon of a homosexual muslim man wearing a series of rainbow colored bandages on his head with the word “PRIDE” written underneath. The bandages are no doubt due to his getting the shit kicked out of him by the homophobic bigots that inhabit his native country of Iran.
See for yourself:
My Gay Muslim Dude Stamp
Some how this was misunderstood by the good folks at either Zazzle.com or the USPS. I’m not really sure how they jumped to the conclusion they did. Let’s look at some “facts:”
According to the good people of Religious Tolerance dot Org:
- 0.700 billion or more, Barnes & Noble Encyclopedia 1993
- 0.817 billion, The Universal Almanac (1996)
- 0.951 billion, The Cambridge Factfinder (1993)
- 1.100 billion, The World Almanac (1997)
- 1.200 billion, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic relations)
Islam is growing about 2.9% per year. This is faster than the total world population which increases about 2.3% annually. It is thus attracting a progressively larger percentage of the world’s population.”
Further research concerning homosexuality in the United States puts conservative numbers at 2.5% (see: PRB.org and Gallup.com for where I get that percentage). With the last of the numbers above concerning Muslims (1.200 Billion) it puts them at roughly 22% of the World Population. The United States population is around 300 Million+ with a conservative estimate of homosexuals at 7.5 million.
I know these numbers won’t be exact but I think they’ll make the point:
Let’s take the United States numbers as a population slice and apply it to the World Population of Muslims. (assuming all these numbers are using the ’short scale’) 1.2 billion at 2.5% would roughly be 30 million. If you want to fudge the guest-imate even more conservative just slide the decimal over. 1.2 billion at .25% is still 3 million. The chances of one of those 3 million Muslims (roughly 3/4 the population of Atlanta, GA) being male (thereby having the name Mohammad or Muhammad), being homosexual, and being proud of it, are not difficult to grasp.
The dude is out there.
My stamp above was CLEARLY for that guy. Because he is a brave brave soul to be honest and open about who he is in such a hostile environment.
Zazzle.com and/or The USPS seem to think the drawing above is of The Prophet Muhammad (even though I clearly never used any reference to The Prophet).
Quoting the email following the stamp’s rejection:
Product Title: Mohammad Pride
• Product Type: Postage
• Product ID: 172905757265638763
• Result: Not Approved
• Policy Violations:
o Design incorporates the name or likeness of a current or former world leader or politician, or a local, regional, national or international leader, religious figurehead, or politician.*
*(highlights are my own)
I was truly shocked when I read that.
Did Zazzle.com and/or The United States Postal Service just say that they thought the founder of the Muslim Religion is a homosexual? But then again maybe they know something I don’t.
So I checked.
I couldn’t find anything in The Koran (Quran, Qur’ān, Qur’an, Al-Coran or Al-Qur’ān) about him being into dudes… except that women aren’t allowed in a lot of places… I’m not sure though how many of the “No Girls Allowed” policies in Mosques and other places found in Islamic Theocracies are the will of the religion’s founder and how many are just laws put into place by opportunistic gay muslim misogynists.
Considering the recent plight of Gregorius Nekschot, the infamous Salman Rushdie fatwā, and the nascent threats against “South Park” creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone (to name only a few incidents) I find it to be an audacious assumption that the image above of a bandage wearing proud homosexual Muslim man (probably from Iran) could be confused with the probably heterosexual, illiterate, monoglot prophet whose words sparked the Islamic faith.
I sit here shocked that they (USPS and/or Zazzle.com) would say such things… and I wish them all the best in keeping their heads firmly attached to their necks… cause some of those fuckers are crazy.
-Matt Davis
