Secularism and civilization

The riots in the Islamic world over an anti-Islamic video (ie: people responding to vile accusations against them by proving them true) have reinforced one thing for me. The biggest single indicator of a civilized society today is the degree to which that society is influenced by the separation of church and state.

People have every right to follow their religious faith in their own lives. They do not have the right to impose their faith on everyone else. Civilized societies recognize this. Regressive ones do not.

Barbarian demands to dig up Muslim cemetery... and other musings

"If fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." -Sinclair Lewis

Religion is a strange thing. It seems to bring out either the absolute best in people and the absolute worst in people. For example, it was Christians who were instrumental in pushing the black equal rights movement. And it was also Christians who perpetrated the Inquisition and the Holocaust and, on a less severe scale, are the most vocal opposition to the gay equal rights movement.

I found interest a survey by the Pew Forum concluding that atheists and agnostics in America know more about religion than the religious. It reinforces my suspicions that organized religion discourages intellectual curiosity by its insistence on deference to a central authority.

But this isn’t that surprising. My experience as a Catholic growing up depended greatly on the priests at any given time. The good clerics drew out the religion’s humanity. The mediocre ones never went beyond the realm of theory and scolding. Though this variation was counterintuitive to the principle of a universal church.

I wonder why anti-Semitism is (rightly) considered vile and repugnant but Islamophobia is increasingly socially acceptable... if not mandatory in some circles.

And speaking of Islamophobia, I don’t think you can demand the desecration of cemeteries and call others barbaric and uncivilized.

Apologies to Muslims

New York Times' columnist Nick Kristof published an apology to Muslims for all the hateful, defamataory and vitriolic generalizations directed at them by far too many citizens of the so-called 'home of the brave.'

Kristof begins: Many Americans have suggested that more moderate Muslims should stand up to extremists, speak out for tolerance, and apologize for sins committed by their brethren.

That’s reasonable advice, and as a moderate myself, I’m going to take it. (Throat clearing.) I hereby apologize to Muslims for the wave of bigotry and simple nuttiness that has lately been directed at you. The venom on the airwaves, equating Muslims with terrorists, should embarrass us more than you. Muslims are one of the last minorities in the United States that it is still possible to demean openly, and I apologize for the slurs.

He laments that a Maine newspaper caved in to hysterical hatemongers by apologizing for an innocuous article that portrayed Muslims as... (insert menacing music)... civilized human beings. In 2010, that's apparently something to apologize for.

The Post-Star ran a similar, innocuous story earlier this month on the religious practices of a Muslim gentleman in Queensbury, which also provoked filthy invective. I'm no fan of the paper's managing editor Ken Tingley, but to his immense credit, he refused to apologize for a piece which portrayed a decent human being as a decent human being and as well as for denouncing the vile bigots.

I applaud Tingley for standing by the article and standing against the mindlessness. I also echo Kristof's apology to Muslims.

The triumph of hate: the US plunges further into the Dark Ages

”There’s nothing more frightening than ignorance in action.” –Tom Smothers

There’s was a lot of optimism that the inauguration of a not completely regressive (in rhetoric at least) president and administration might reverse the Dark Ages the United States has been in for most of this decade. Sadly, it’s seemed to embolden bigots and other retrograde forces.

It’s clear that Muslims are welcome to build a mosque and community center ANYWHERE* in this great and free land of America.

(*-This offer is not valid in the lower 48 states, Hawaii or Alaska)

Opposition to the fraudulently named* Mosque at Ground Zero was supposedly motivated only by (hold hand over heart) the fact that it was “too close” to Ground Zero... without ever quite specifying what distance away from Ground Zero would be tolerable.

(*-The community center would not be at Ground Zero. And the multistory building would have a mosque but only as one of many components. Calling the whole project a mosque is like referring to a YMCA as a swimming pool)

Subsequent events have laid bare the real agenda of these people.

Some news items you may have missed...

-Bigots torched the site of a proposed Islamic community center in Tennessee... this was after NPR reported on the controversy. The chief opponent of the TN mosque proudly displayed his ignorance by declaring, “We're Christians and this religion represents people that are against Christians.”

-The New York Times reported on opposition to similar Islamic community center projects in places as diverse as Florida, Tennessee and southern California. Apparently, San Bernadino, CA, is also “too close” to Ground Zero.

-Former House speaker Newt Gingrich recently compared supporters of the “Ground Zero Mosque” to Nazis.

-The Associated Press quoted the vile Gingrich as again fanning the flames of hatred with his comment that “America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization.” The AP also reported that Days ago, a brick nearly smashed a window at the Madera Islamic Center in central California, where signs were left behind that read, "Wake up America, the enemy is here," and "No temple for the god of terrorism." This past week in New York, a Muslim cab driver had his face and throat slashed in a suspected hate crime.

-Because of his refusal to fan anti-Islamic hatred (and perhaps his failure to invade any Islamic countries), an increasing number of Americans now believe the falsehood that President Obama is a Muslim. It’s not just that 20 percent of the entire nation’s population believe this lie, but that most would view this lie, if true, as an evil, horrible state of affairs.


The overwhelming majority of Muslims in America are peaceful, law abiding. They are respectful of the communities they live in. They serve on school boards and coach youth sports and serve in the armed forces of the United States. They consciously chose to live in a secular republic with a secular Constitution, rather than in a theocracy. They chose to live in America because they felt it had some appeal, not because, as the despicable Gingrich suggests, they want to undermine.

It’s clear that the far right and forces of Christian extremism are hell bent in alienating moderate Muslims, in pushing them into the extremist camp, solely to advance their own political ambitions. This is truly sickening and disgusting. It is against everything the Real America (if not Sarah Palin’s America) is supposed to stand for. This is not what my country is about. These divisive hatemongers ought to read the Pledge of Allegiance. “...indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL.”

It’s quite clear that the domestic forces of darkness and hatred and bigotry are a far greater threat to American values and civilization than some Muslim version of the YMCA.

Terrorism works by provoking self-destruction

There's been a lot of controversy about the mosque and community center to be built several blocks away from the Ground Zero site in Manhattan. Apparently, some people truly believed the line that 'they' hate us for our freedom so they're trying to remedy this problem by eradicating the freedom part.

Do opponents of the project object to its services for the elderly? Its day care program? The 9/11 memorial that it will house?

The religious bigotry underpinning the controversy has been whipped by venal, self-serving politicians, who are behind most forms of bigotry. The issue was first seized upon by Rick Lazio and Carl Paladino. These Republican candidates for governor are light years behind in the polls to Democratic front-runner Andrew Cuomo and they fabricated this issue in a pathetic attempt to get people to pay attention to them.

The hypocrisy was amplified when both of these 'men' proposed using eminent domain to stop the project. So these conservatives, who brag about supporting 'limiting government,' proposed using the government bludgeon to suppress both freedom of religion and private property rights.

Of course, the usual cacaphony of hatemongers like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck didn't miss their chance to stoke the fires of ignorance.

Some claim that their opposition is not to any mosque/community center but only to the location of this particular one. Those this page shows some of the other things that are even closer to sacred site.

There are no doubt some who oppose the project solely because its location. Perhaps in an ideal world, it would not have been built so close to the former Twin Towers' site. However, as the project's spokesman pointed out, real estate in lower Manhattan is neither abundant nor cheap.

But the reality is that much of the opposition is really based on religious bigotry. This article in The New York Times points out that opposition has arisen mosque building projects in places like Tennessee, Wisconsin and California.

As a representative of a California mosque/community center project pointed out, local Muslim families had contributed to the local food bank, sent truckloads of supplies to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and participated in music nights and Thanksgiving events with the local interfaith council. "We do all these activities and nobody notices,” he said. “Now that we have to build our center, everybody jumps to make it an issue.”
For some, 'too close to Ground Zero' for an Islamic site really means 'anywhere in America.'

If this is what Sarah Palin's sickening 'real America' is all about, then I'll stay here in the 'fake America' that was founded as a haven for religious tolerance and believes in freedom and other civilized values.

A good part of our foreign policy is based encouraging moderate Muslims to stand up for themselves against the violent, extremist strand of their faith and to support them when they do. So what's our strategy at home? To tar them all with the same brush. To act like all Muslims were responsible for 9/11 and that they should all face the collective punishment of being allowed nowhere even remotely near the site.

Yogi Berra famously said the secret of baseball management was to keep the guys who hated you away from the guys who were undecided.

It's a good national security strategy too, one that conservatives would be wise to follow.

Liberté, égalité, racisme

I'm not sure if it's reassuring or troubling that small-minded anti-Islamic bigotry isn't unique to the United States. The French daily Le Monde reports on the case of a 9 year old boy who was denied a place on a children's game show solely because of his first name: Islam.

"You must understand that the name of your child makes reference to a religion that the French don't like very much," the casting director told the boy's mother. "It could shock people."

The show even urged them to have the boy use a pseudonym instead, which the family refused.

Naturally, after the story went public, the show called invited the boy back on the show and 'apologized' (the usual 'this goes against the values of the production company bla bla bla'). The family declined, seeing through this transparent attempt at PR damage control.

Rejecting a child because of something as trivial as his first name is something you might expect on an elementary school playground. Imagine this boy's parents having to explain why so-called adults would do such a thing.

A hatemonger exposed

Here's a great example of how hatemongers are often more interested in being martyred than actually being heard. Not surprising, since we all know what would happen should their blatherings be subjected to rational scrunity.

Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who heads an anti-immigrant party, decided to make a short anti-Muslim film entitled 'Fitna' (strife). The purpose of the film was to argue that Islam was inherently violent and barbaric and to show the Koran as being fascist.

Mainstream Dutch channels refused to show the screed, which certainly played into the free speech martyr image that Wilders hoped for. An image that fit perfectly with the 'all Muslims want to silence criticism' thesis of his film.

But a Dutch Muslim broadcaster threw a curveball. It decided to call Wilders' bluff and offered to show Fitna unedited on its channel.

Wilders refused this wide exposure and released it on the internet.

In doing so, it exposed what many already knew. Wilders was nothing more than a cheap hatemonger who was more interested in pretending to be a victim than to advancing any kind of civilized dialogue.