People have a right to offend the religious sensibilities of others, even if they do so in works of would-be art that are intellectually stupid and artistically worthless. It's a shame, therefore, to see a sort of united front of Australian political leaders - John Howard and Kevin Rudd - making the same complaint about 'a holographic image of Osama bin Laden that morphs into Jesus Christ': namely, that it is likely to offend people. (See also here.)
If the fact that it offends the beliefs of Christians is the key thing, then of course no one should say anything offensive about Judaism, Islam, Bhuddism, Hinduism or any other religion, and you've got a rich set of constraints on what painters, poets, novelists and all the rest of us may openly do and say. You're short of an answer, in particular, when outraged Muslims fulminate about Salman Rushdie. Why doesn't it suffice to say, as Glynis Quinlan is reported to have done for the Australian Christian Lobby, that Jesus's message was one of love and forgiveness - not the principal ideas associated with Osama bin Laden? Howard and Rudd might have thought of setting an example in what liberal freedoms entail in a democratic society. They include that some people get to be offended from time to time. And not only the religious. (Via Andrew Bolt.)