It’s not uncommon for politicians and political animals to get things wrong. We criticise them for it all the time.

Staffan de Mistura, however, has now plumbed the depths of an altogether quite superlative wrongness. De Mistaker has blamed the killing of 14 people in violent demonstrations in Afghanistan on Friday on an American pastor who burnt a copy of the koran.

Granted that the actions of Wayne Sapp and Terry Jones were offensive to muslims. Burning a copy of a religious book is an intolerant and highly bigoted act. But – it was just a book. And if a faith is so weak that it cannot withstand such a mild assault then I venture to suggest that it is not worth having. Unfortunately, the modern religious zealot has little or no sense of proportion.

I find some of the proponents of both christianity and islam highly offensive. What would you expect me to say of people who openly call me an abomination and, in the case of the latter, think I should be killed merely because I am what I am. The difference is that you don’t see crowds of angry queens and lesbians rampaging through the streets killing people because someone dared to disagree with them.

De Mistaker says “I don’t think we should be blaming any Afghan, we should be blaming the person who produced the news – the one who burned the Koran.”

No. NO. NO!!!

You put the blame for those deaths on the bastards that did it – and you can STOP making excuses for religious nutjobs who value nothing but their own set of bigotries.