Today's press release from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture
NATIONAL RELIGIOUS CAMPAIGN AGAINST TORTURE
For Immediate Release: March 8, 2011
NATIONAL RELIGIOUS CAMPAIGN AGAINST TORTURE ASKS
REPRESENTATIVE PETER KING TO CANCEL ANTI-MUSLIM HEARINGS
Rep. Peter King (NY-3) has announced that he will hold a series of hearings on the “radicalization of the American Muslim community” and its alleged unwillingness to cooperate with law enforcement agencies to stop terrorism.
In response to the hearings, Rev. Richard Killmer, Executive Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), issued this statement:
“We believe there is a better way to make our nation safe than to inappropriately single out one faith community. Instead of emphasizing our differences, our safety as a nation would be increased if the government asked all the religious communities in America to work together for our nation’s security.
Rep. King’s hearings will increase anti-Muslim sentiment in America and isolate our Muslim citizens without improving American security. Prejudice toward Muslims was a significant contributing factor that led to U.S. acceptance of torture.
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture calls on Rep. King to either cancel the hearings or to change their format to create a constructive dialogue about how people of all faiths can stop terrorism.”
Jeanne Clark states Why Catholics Must Speak Out Against Islamophobia in the National Catholic Reporter.
As a Catholic sister from Long Island, I stand with a broad spectrum of faith leaders who believe that fighting terrorism must never mean compromising our nation's core values and highest ideals.
King’s sweeping investigation of “radicalization” in the American Muslim community should be especially denounced by Catholics, whose ancestors here battled vile stereotypes and even charges of disloyalty.
While it may seem like ancient history these days, natavist mobs once burned Catholic churches. Political cartoons such as Thomas Nast’s “The American River Ganges” savaged Catholic bishops as suspicious pawns of Rome. Signs in shop windows reminding Irish that they need not apply for work were a visible reminder of Catholic immigrants’ second-class status.
Today, a toxic climate of Islamophobia stigmatizes Muslims. Many women on Long Island who because of their faith wear the hijab (head covering) are afraid to go to the grocery store alone.
Meanwhile, Intisar Rabb sets the record straight on Sharia.
Sharia is the ideal law of God according to Islam. Muslims believe that the Islamic legal system is one that aims toward ideals of justice, fairness, and the good life. Sharia has tremendous diversity, as jurists and learned scholars figure out and articulate what that law is. Historically, Sharia served as a means for political dissent against arbitrary rule. It is not a monolithic doctrine of violence, as has been characterized in the recently introduced Tennessee bill that would criminalize practices of Sharia.
I teach both American law and Islamic law in an American law school, so I am very much attuned to seeing issues of religion in terms of American federal and state laws. The First Amendment affirms the free exercise or practice of religion and at the same time forbids the establishment of religion by government.
We have never had a threat to our democracy from the long-time religious practices of Muslims in America. I think in part that stems from the nature of Muslim religious practice in this country—it is more of a private religious matter than a very public iteration. It also speaks to the strength and flexibility of our laws, both state and federal, that continuously affirm religion as a value. We want to encourage its free practice while also not establishing religion in any governmental sense.
Updated by dirkster42 at Tue Mar 8, 2011, 05:05:52 PM
See also Ed Tracey's diary, Swedish Churches Unite Against Islamophobia