In yesterday's Politico, the Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero exposes Keith Koffler's lack of faith in the American people
Slamming Maureen Dowd for defending Obama's efforts to combat prejudice against Islam, poor Keith Koffler makes a fatal error in his stupid screed enabling Islamophobia and lunatic fringe accucastions about the President's Faith. To wit:
"Even if the terrorists hijacked a religion along with those airplanes, they were still murdering thousands of Americans in the name of that faith. The association cannot be erased. It is this association — not the religion itself — to which people are reacting."
(You can read the piece at http://www.politico.com/...
Really. Hey Keith -- Please don't tar the American people with this brush. Our country is founded on erasing just this kind association. In America, we don't condemn entire faiths based on the acts of a few pyschotic killers. The vast majority of us never have, and we never will.
Yes, Keith, "Barack Hussein Obama" is indeed a Muslim name. And yes, the President does not wear his Christian faith on his shirtsleeve, perhaps remembering an old axiom of Boston politics -- don't trust a politician who carries his Bible on the bus for all to see.
And, yes, Keith, Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, which proves the majority of the American people did exactly what you say they cannot do -- erase guilt by associaton. To say it "cannot be erased" is to go against the very root of the American experience, and it shows the deep cynicism with which you regard the American people.
Speak for yourself -- maybe this association cannot be erased for you. And then try and get with the program. Get with what it means to be an American citizen in the 21st century.
In the words of Martin Amis,9/11 should provoke "species fear" -- the knowledge that as a human race, we are capable of incredible acts of hatred against each other. Religion can be used to enable man's capacity for murder and evil, and just about every religion has been used in this way. But as any 11-year-old would tell you, Keith, the fault of course is not the religion, but that of those who pervert it.