Steyn On Why Pamela Geller's Defense of Aqsa Parvez Is Justified and Worthwhile

For reasons best known to himself, The National Post's Chris Selley chose to pick a fight with the few people who want to ensure that Aqsa Parvez's short life is memorialized by something more than the plot number of an unmarked grave. Pamela Geller and Kathy Shaidle can take care of themselves, and have done, but the reality is that if it weren't for the frothing loony ranting wackjob haters of the blogosphere a 16-year old girl murdered for not wanting to be imprisoned by her family's culture would be entirely forgotten.

So what's more offensive? The moral outrage of Pamela Geller at the westernization of "honor killing"? Or the mainstream coverage by a politically correct media? Here's what the lunchtime poll at Toronto's CITY-TV thought wasthe big issue arising from Aqsa Parvez's murder:

Do you think society discriminates against women who wear a hijab?

Gotcha. It's our fault.

Here's the weirdly contorted lengths Canada's Number One news anchor, CTV's Lloyd Robertson, went to to avoid telling his viewers Aqsa Parvez had beenstrangled?

Her neck was compressed, to the point she couldn't breathe.

Here's the Montreal Gazette's editorialists insisting that Mr Parvez and every pur laine papa in la belle province are merely different points on the same continuum:

Muhammed Parvez might have been fighting a losing battle trying to make Aqsa wear a hijab, but that hardly sets him apart. Few are the fathers, of any faith or none, who have not clashed with their adolescent daughters over something...

So which response to this issue is, in Chris Selley's words, "a few chick peas short of a falafel"? The Misses Geller and Shaidle? Or the sensible, reasonable, moderate, measured approach of the PC eunuchs at Canada's most-watched TV stations and major metropolitan newspapers?...

Read it all. Also, Pamela herself has further remarks here about this initiative, and why she began it.