Two gunmen were shot dead Sunday while trying to attack a gathering in Garland, Texas that showcased cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad. These men did not represent the Muslim community. Muslim Americans, like all Americans, reject violence and terrorism.

But there is another side to the incident. The woman behind the cartoon contest is a bigot who has gone out of her way to vilify all Muslims and spread hatred with false accusations and exaggerated claims about the Muslim American community. 

The offensive content of the cartoons and Pamela Geller’s “jihad” against Muslim Americans do not justify violence. But the attack, which was fortunately thwarted with only the attackers killed, was exactly what the bigots wanted— a validation of the irrational fear they had been spreading against Islam.

The day after the attack, Congressman Peter King (R- NY) called for more surveillance of Muslim Americans “because that’s where the threat comes from.”

The First Amendment, which is the greatest legislation in history, grants absolute legality of opinions. However, our Constitution counts on the people to pick the best ideas and marginalize the terrible ones. It is a free market, where bad products— bigotry, racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and ignorant speech—should fail. 

The cartoon contest, whose sole purpose was to offend Muslims for no other reason than making them feel unwelcomed in their own country, is protected by the Constitution. 

However, the system has failed us, victims of bigotry. Geller and her ilk are being invited to speak at universities, instead of being shunned because of their hatred.

There is no doubt that Geller is an irrational supremacist when it comes to Islam. She and her friend Robert Spencer are on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of extremists, alongside Ku Klux Klan leaders, neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers. 

Such bigots should not be given space on national television or “equal time” in a story, lest they use it to compare themselves to Rosa Parks or call an entire community “savages” as Geller did on Fox News Tuesday.  

We condemn the attack in Texas, but our stand against terrorism should be known without having to state it. When Geller came to our community in 2012, she was largely ignored, except by Muslim women who tried to attend her conference and were denied entry. Ironic, given that the conference addressed the treatment of women in Islam.

Geller keeps reminding people that she is practicing her freedom of speech when she attacks Muslims, and she is. 

However, that unintelligent extremist rose to infamy in 2009 after waging a campaign against building a mosque— a religious institution protected by the same First Amendment that guards her speech— in lower Manhattan.