Sudanese authorities said on Tuesday they were stepping up an investigation into a British teacher held for allegedly insulting Islam's prophet by allowing children to call a teddy bear Mohammed.

As mother Gillian Gibbons woke up to a second day in police detention, Justice Minister Mohammed Ali Mardhi was quoted in the local press as ordering General Prosecutor Salaheddin Abu Zaid to take personal charge of the case.

"This lady was arrested because of a complaint under article 125 of the penal code and the investigation is continuing," Abu Zaid told AFP.

"Questioning started yesterday and is continuing today. We are also questioning witnesses and if witnesses bring new elements to light, the charges could become more serious," added the prosecutor.

Pretty frightening, isn't it? A country where a teacher can be charged with a crime for merely allowing her students to choose the "wrong" name for a teddy bear? Sounds barbaric and obscene to those of us who have been raised in a climate of religious tolerance and who have been allowed to voice any opinion, even one that might offend members of any religious sect, because we have a right to free speech guaranteed by our Constitution. Yet, this isn't that different from what we could expect from the Christian right in this country should they ever achieve total power and and impose their extremist religious views on the rest of us.

Imagine if we were governed by those who would impose their version of biblical law upon our society. Homosexuality would incur the death penalty. Adulterers could be stoned to death. Divorce would be prohibited. Blasphemy would be a crime, as would heresy (i.e., beliefs not in accord with the official interpretation of the official faith). Taking the Lord's name in vain could result in punishment by the authorities. A miscarriage might be a crime, and if doctors used current procedures to alleviate a woman's suffering they and her might be considered murderers.

Christianity went through this phase in Europe during medieval times, when heretics were massacred and suspected witches were burned at the stake, Jews were forcibly converted or driven out of Christian lands, science were suppressed and bloody wars were fought between Catholics and Protestants. Millions died, thousands were tortured, and the human spirit was brutalized all in the name of faith.

We live in a country whose founders, deeply flawed as they were, at least recognized that religious tolerance was a necessity, and that establishing an official religion was the path toward tyranny and loss of individual liberty. This is why any attempt to proclaim that America was founded as a Christian Nation is a dangerous and subversive lie, one that could have very dangerous consequences for all of us should the religious extremists among us ever get their wish to impose their version of morality on everyone else. Do we really want to emulate the worst excesses of those Islamic countries who will not tolerate any act, no matter how innocent or unintentional, which could could be conceivably interpreted as offensive to Islam?

I don't think so.