The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on October 17, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher. The title has been changed to the original submission title.
This was a column that I wrote under a very tight deadline after my original column for October was rejected by the Times editorial staff. According to the rejection I received the original column, on desegregating the Greek system at the University of Alabama, contained too many unsupported facts and was too "hard news". I provided support for the facts, but the column was not published. I will publish it here in this blog.
On Sept. 11, 2010, Huntsvillians of all faiths spent the morning performing service to our community.
I had the good fortune to work with believers in the Christian, Islamic and Hindu faiths at the Huntsville Islamic Center assembling several hundred food packs for Huntsville's homeless community.
Every year the Islamic Center celebrates the end of Ramadan with a community service project and this year the Saturday at the end of Ramadan happened to be Sept. 11. Our local group was supplemented by a group of Presbyterians visiting our area from South Africa; one room, many faiths, many accents, a kaleidoscope of skin tones, all devoted to helping our community.
I have been deeply disturbed by much of the anti-Islamic rhetoric on television and on the editorial pages lately. Newt Gingrich seems to be trying to make a comeback based on demonizing Islam in general and American Muslims in particular. Sarah Palin warns us that no one will tolerate the imposition of Sharia law, but of course no one has seriously proposed using Sharia law in the U.S.A. We have a thing called the Constitution that is the supreme law of our land. You have probably heard about it.
Locally, some letters against the free practice of Islam in the U.S. have pointed out that in several Muslim nations the building of Christian churches and the free practice of Christianity is not allowed.
Quite true, but are we not better than that? Do we not hold our Constitution dear and believe that the First Amendment really means something special?
Where are the Muslims who condemn violence? They are here, quietly working to make our community stronger. They have been here and they have never wavered in their condemnation of the terrorists that struck America. On Sept. 11, 2001, they felt the same pain we did, but that pain has been magnified by ignorance and intolerance as they and the faith they practice has been blamed for the attacks of fanatical terrorists.
Timothy McVeigh was a believer in Christian Identity theology, a racist theology that, while labeled as Christian, has nothing to do with the Christ I know. Would the victims of the Oklahoma City attack oppose the building of a Lutheran church near the Morrow Federal Building site? Of course not, because they know the difference between McVeigh's extreme ideology and that of a mainline church.
When Reverend Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church spews his hate near the funeral of a fallen soldier, do we blame the Southern Baptists for his sick behavior? It's an absurd idea, yet all Muslin believers are being equated with the acts of terrorists.
Have you read the Koran? Yes, it has passages that seem to advocate violence against non-Muslims. But it also has passages that condemn violence.
Have you read the Bible? It too has passages that advocate violence against non-believers, some quite horrific.
Yet in the Bible Jesus commands us to feed the poor, heal the sick and welcome the stranger. Paul tells us "do not return evil for evil." A complete reading and a study of context are essential to understanding each of these books of faith.
I'm a Presbyterian deacon. It may seem odd that I feel the need to defend a faith that is different than my own. But I think that there is a need to speak, to support religious freedom and to support some good Americans in our community who just happen to practice a different faith. Practicing freedom is about protecting the rights of the minority.
Going along with the crowd requires no courage and little thought. Isn't it time to park our fears and learn more about fellow Americans who practice a different religion? The Constitution lives when we practice the freedoms that it guarantees. This is one such time.
The day of service opened at St. Mark's Lutheran Church. Before we left for the Islamic Center the Golden Rule was read from each of the world's great faiths. Every one was a version of the same thought, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you."
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