Vail Daily Editor Don Rogers: We’re better than this
Vail, CO, Colorado
How many times did President Bush remark that we are not at war with Islam?
How close are our brethren in the GOP and tea party ranks holding the Constitution to their chests?
The 9/11 terrorists were no more sent by Islam than hordes of “Christian” terrorists and other violent nutcases have represented their faith through history.
No religion owns terrorism, even when people who commit such violence claim a hold to a particular faith. That’s a simple and obvious perversion.
The truth is terrorism is about politics only, every time.
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Muslims in this world number 1 billion to 1.5 billion, about 2 million of them U.S. citizens. Neighbors.
What percentage do you really think are poised to put on shoe bombs? The fraction is very, very near zero.
It’s incidental that Islam is the dominant faith in the war-torn, oppressive, poverty-stricken Middle East, northern Africa and historic Persia.
We’re not at war with Islam. But you wouldn’t know it from prominent Republicans who should know better and are so, so willing to throw out constitutional protections to fellow Americans who happen to worship the “wrong” way.
Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich should have the strength of character to defend the absolute right of citizens to build a mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero. Period.
Why? The 1st Amendment to the Constitution, our founding-father history for religious tolerance, and a very, very basic understanding of what the terrorists represent — and what they do not.
Besides, seriously, we have a problem now with Sufis? Are you kidding? Ordinary Christian holy rollers are more aggressive than Sufis, and I’m not saying the former are aggressive.
Building a mosque near Ground Zero — not on Ground Zero — should be widely welcomed, not reviled.
Nothing says more good about an America that lives to the spirit as well as the letter of its Constitution, serves as a beacon to the world, and tangibly expresses Jesus’ words than a close cousin’s house of faith in the shadow of the collapsed towers.
Not much says anything worse about us than protesting loudly on thin grounds of ignorance, prejudice and misplaced outrage.
Don’t know about you, but my America is bigger than that.
Editor and Publisher Don Rogers can be reached at drogers@vaildaily.com or 970-748-2920. You can comment on this and other features in the Vail Daily at http://www.vaildaily.com
