Religion and Free Speech

There's two articles in the media right now pertaining to religion and free speech. As you might suspect, each is incredibly stupid in their own way.

The first about a Muslim group fire bombing Christian Churches because a Catholic newspaper used the word "Allah" as a generic term for God. It is. It's extremely sad and pathetic for someone to get so worked up about people using words properly. Imagine what would have happened if someone declared a fatwa against comma splices....

The second story is about a court upholding the right of free-speech, even when it includes insulting of a religion (Islam in this case). While I think it's absolutely wonderful that the freedom of speech is being upheld over religious whining, it does strike me as an odd double standard: If someone insults Islam, it's perfectly protected under free speech, but how many times have we seem similar insults lobbed at Christians reframed as "hate speech"?