Damn

I cuss, and I’m pretty proficient at it.  Been doing it almost since I could talk, and I’ve been talking since before I was a year old.

Time has taken its toll, and there is almost no one left to testify, but I’ve been told that I was speaking in coherent sentences before I could walk.

I try to avoid blasphemy, but when I do utter one, the worst thing that happens (in this world, anyway) is a frown.  

Just one more reason to thank God I live in America.

Asia Bibi, has been sentenced to death for blaspheming against Islam. That is enough to make her entire family a target.

Her husband, Ashiq Masih says his daughters still cry for their mother and ask if she will be home in time for Christmas.

He insists that Asia Bibi is innocent and will be freed, but he worries about what will happen next.

"When she comes out, how she can live safely?" he asks.

"They say 'we'll deal with you if we get our hands on you'. Now everyone knows about us, so I am hiding my kids here and there. I don't allow them to go out. Anyone can harm them," he added.

“No one will let her live. The mullahs are saying they will kill her when she comes out."

Asia Bibi, an illiterate farm worker from rural Punjab, is the first woman sentenced to hang under Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law.

Asia Bibi's troubles began in June 2009 in her village, Ittan Wali, where hers was the only Christian household.

She was picking berries alongside local Muslim women, when an argument developed over sharing water. Days later, the women claimed she had insulted the Prophet Muhammad. Soon, Asia Bibi was being pursued by a mob. "In the village they tried to put a noose around my neck, so that they could kill me," she said in a brief appearance outside her jail cell.

Asia Bibi says she was falsely accused to settle an old score. That is often the case with the blasphemy law, critics say.

A radical cleric has promised 500,000 Pakistani rupees ($5,800) to anyone prepared to "finish her". He suggested that the Taliban might be happy to do it.

The imam, Qari Mohammed Salim, told us he cried with joy when the death sentence was passed on Asia Bibi. He helped to bring the case against her and says she will be made to pay, one way or the other.

In Pakistan, Islamic parties have been out on the streets, threatening anarchy if she is freed, or if there is any attempt to amend the blasphemy law.

Under Pakistan's penal code, anyone who "defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet" can be punished by death or life imprisonment. Death sentences have always been overturned on appeal.

"It is a hanging sword on the neck of all minorities, especially Christians," says Shahzad Kamran, of the Sharing Life Ministry, which ministers to prisoners, including Asia Bibi.

"It's very easy to make this accusation because of a grudge, or for revenge. Anyone can accuse you.

"Even our little children are afraid that if they say something wrong at school, they will be charged with blasphemy."

When Pakistan's Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti,  himself a Christian, hopes that Asia Bibi will win an appeal to the High Court, or be pardoned by Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari.

He says she is one of dozens of innocent people who are accused every year.

Even behind bars Asia Bibi may not be safe.

Several people accused of blasphemy have been killed in jail.

Thirty-four people connected with blasphemy cases have been killed since the law was hardened in 1986, according to Pakistan's Justice and Peace Commission, a Catholic campaign group.

The death toll includes those accused, their relatives, and even a judge.