HBO's Koran By Heart: Can't contest this documentary's greatness

By Edward Copeland

This week's installment in HBO Documentary Films' summer series, Koran By Heart, is being promoted mainly as a film about the International Holy Koran Competition where young Muslims from around the world descend on Cairo to compete in a spelling bee-like competition testing their skills at reciting the Koran, both in terms of memorization and presentation. While that is the major focus of director Greg Barker's film, Koran By Heart tackles so much more than the competition and contains a richness and universality that makes the documentary a film that should be required viewing for everyone.

The documentary covers the 2010 competition which, as the contest always has, occurs during the Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan, which begins today and commemorates the month when the first verses of the Koran were said to have been revealed to Mohammed. Because of the Arab Spring, particularly with Hosni Mubarak's ouster in Egypt, it wasn't clear if there would be an International Holy Koran Competition this year, especially in Cairo. Google news searches could find similar contests being held in Iran and Saudi Arabia, but no mention of the large contest or, of the documentary's most fascinating figure, Dr. Salem Abdel-Galil, deputy minister of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Egypt, who coordinates the contest. I could find no news stories indicating if this self-proclaimed moderate Muslim warning against extremism and fundamentalists still holds his post, but found that he does have a public figure page on Facebook.

Dr. Salem does take on a monumental task in arranging the event. He lets his staff handle the logistics, which would be overwhelming alone, making certain that 110 competitors from 70 different countries all make it to Cairo for the event. They range in age from their early 20s to as young as 7 and some, even the young ones, come without adult chaperones. The reciters, as they are called, all are Muslims, but all hail from different parts of the world and have learned to memorize the Koran in Arabic even though many do not speak Arabic and don't understand the content of what they are saying. While Salem's staff takes care of the administrative side, he concerns himself with what he calls "the creative" side, namely orchestrating how the contest runs. He chooses the questions and decides the criteria for judging the reciters. "The Koran is the only book that can be completely memorized. It's a miracle children can memorize it even without understanding its meaning," Dr. Salem says. I hate to differ with him, but being raised in the Bible Belt, I've known a lot of people who can recite Bible verses to you and if you try, anything can be memorized. Dr. Salem also has other duties with his job unrelated to the annual contest. He oversees 100,000 mosques and also is a well-known media personality in Egypt, hosting his own weekly TV show, The Final Word, where he preaches his message of moderate Islam and being true to the Koran, saying extremism and terrorism goes against Mohammed's teachings. As he says when we first meet him in the film:

"The irresponsible actions you see in some Muslims are because they are estranged from the Koran or don't understand the Koran. So stealing, sex outside of marriage, intoxication, injustice, aggression and terrorism — these are not allowed"

With 110 competitors, that would be a daunting task for filmmakers as well so director Greg Barker chooses to focus on three 10-year-olds from different parts of the globe:

Nabiollah, who lives in rural Tajikistan and attends a Madrassa where the only education he receives concerns the Koran.

Rifdha, a very smart girl from the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean who excels in all subjects, especially math and science, and is one of only 10 girls in the contest, though her parents have very different visions for her future.

Djamil, who is coming to Cairo by himself from his home in Senegal in West Africa, and has been told by his teacher that he won't just be representing Senegal but the entire continent as well.

Djamil feels an extra burden on his shoulders since his father is a respected imam in Senegal, though the boy has risen to be the country's top reciter without being able to speak a word of Arabic. He tells the filmmakers that his parents told him to learn the Koran before anything else and that every Muslim should do the same. Besides, Djamil adds, he "likes the way the letters look." Djamil's teacher sounds a message similar to that of Dr. Salem's as he prepares to send his star pupil off to Cairo by himself. "Now as you go to Egypt, the world is a mess. People are bombing and killing each other, but if all people understood Koran, there would be peace on Earth," the teacher tells the 10-year-old. "So by not using the Koran as God intended, what is the result? All these problems in the world and what is the solution? Return to the Koran. Learn it. Apply it." It still seems odd to be sending a 10-year-old child off on his own to another country, especially one where he doesn't speak the language. Later, once Djamil has arrived in Cairo, there's a scene where he's trying to speak with his mother on a cell phone, but the connection proves so terrible that neither can hear the other. It shows the family in Senegal saying they must have faith that Djamil will be OK.

Above and beyond the fascinating material itself in Koran By Heart, is the way that director Barker approaches it. At times, it's as if you're watching a feature film instead of a documentary. His direction can be quite stylish, the contest itself automatically creates suspense, he tosses in extra details for both color and, sometimes, laughs as in one instance where some visiting judges are congregating in a lobby and one says to the others, "At my hotel, the call to prayer is done Saudi-style morning, noon and night. Are we in Egypt or what?" which makes the others laugh. There also is something intrinsically funny when we briefly meet Australian Muslims speaking with full-on Aussie accents. Barker's most intriguing touch though is how he layers more information about the people and places we've seen by leaping both backward and forward in time to reveal more. For example, we don't learn until much later in the film that before Nabiollah, the boy from Tajikistan, left for Cairo, the secular government of Tajikistan had closed his Madrassa, trying to clamp down on any rise in extremism. His father took him to a secular school to see if he could be admitted there and we learn that Nabiollah is functionally illiterate. Since the Madrassa only taught the Koran, the 10-year-old can't even read or write in his native language of Tajik, let alone Arabic.

The competition itself makes marathon poker players look like wimps since they get breaks and can eat and drink at the table. The International Holy Koran Competition has qualifying rounds first that last three days and nights — during Ramadan, which means everyone fasts during the day, though they break for the traditional sunset meal. The night session begins at 9:30 p.m. and lasts until 3 a.m. Rifdha actually falls asleep on her father's shoulder waiting for her name to be called. Her father, who will turn out to be the most extreme person depicted in the documentary, never stops being negative and even after Rifdha shakes herself awake and recites, when she returns to her seat, he immediately tells her that she won't make it to the next round so while Rifdha might be happy when she learns she's received 97%, the highest score of the competition so far, her father just looks pissed. How the contest works is that a reciter selects a symbol on a computer screen which randomly selects a question, beginning a passage from the Koran and telling the contestant where he or she should end. It's like Songburst, except they give you the ending. If a reciter makes a mistake and corrects him or herself, they lose half a point. If a judge has to correct them, they lose a whole point. If they make three mistakes, they forfeit the question. The judges enter scores on their computers, which calculate. 100% is the highest score. They are judged on pronunciation, memorization and "The Rules of Tajwid."

This isn't just dry recitation, there's a musical quality to it. Kristina Nelson, considered the top non-Muslim expert on the contest and author of The Art of Reciting the Qur'an, was attracted by this lyrical aspect. She, as well as the judges are extremely impressed by how good Nabiollah is; he even moves some judges to tears and they make a point of hugging and kissing him when he's finished his performance. Though it's just the beauty of his voice — strictly speaking he doesn't follow the Rules of Tajwid to the letter, but the boy had never heard of them until he came to Cairo. He closes his eyes tightly when he recites to avoid distractions and so he can visualize the text before him. Even though Nabiollah and other non-Arabic reciters don't know what they are saying, Dr. Salem says that the level of Heaven that Muslims reach depend on how much of the Koran they have memorized. According to Nelson, the full text of the Koran runs about 600 pages with 114 chapters ranging from three verses to 286 verses long.

While Nabiollah gets by fine without knowing Arabic, it ends up being Djamil's downfall, who unfortunately gets a Koran verse that starts like multiple verses in the book. The judges try to get the young Senegalese boy on the right track, but he of course doesn't understand a word that they are saying, though he keeps trying, through tears, he keeps trying. The judges finally have to stop Djamil who only scores 22%. Because everyone felt so bad for Djamil but admired his perseverance in trying to continue, they arrange for him to recite at one of Cairo's most prestigious mosques. When he goes home to Senegal, he admits things did not go well, but he's able to say so with a smile on his face. After the initial three days of qualifying, 12 of the 110 move on to the finals which are held on national TV before the country's president, still Hosni Mubarak then, and both Nabiollah and Rifdah make the final 12. I won't spoil how they finish for you. With a few days off, they get to sightsee, something else that alienates Rifdah's father who talks more about moving the family away from the Maldives when they get back and how Egyptians aren't very good Muslims.

The director frequently cuts back to the Maldives where we see Rifdah's mother brag about her and we've seen how different the place is. When we first meet Rifdah, she's speaking English and we meet another man in the Maldives who explains how it's always been a secular Muslim country, where women were allowed to work and go about uncovered but that a fundamentalism started to reassert itself in the 1980s. While Koran By Heart doesn't raise the issue, I find it interesting that the extremist Muslims wanting a return to fundamentalism started to occur first in Iran in the late 1970s and elsewhere in the 1980s — the same time fundamentalist Christian groups such as The Moral Majority starting asserting themselves politically in the U.S. and rabid activist groups such as Operation Rescue started protested abortion in less-than-peaceful ways. Another quote that Dr. Salem says in the film really brought home that connection to me:

"The fundamentalist movement is not good for society. They want Islam to turn back the clock on society. Not long ago, they wanted to ban television…Unfortunately those who promote extremism have satellite TV channels with huge audiences and they get a lot of money and they present themselves as 'the voice of Islam' So their voice is louder than ours and we're the moderates. This is very dangerous."

Just substitute Christianity for Islam and think of the late Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. They might not have a body count that comes close to equaling Islamic extremists such as al-Qaida, but it does seem as if they've followed the same timeline, only one group of religious fanatics chose force while the other has chosen political infiltration.

While I won't give away how Nabiollah and Rifdah finish, that to me is what makes this great documentary end on a sad note. We see Rifdah's mother say she'd like her to go into math or science, but it will ultimately be up to her, but her father has different ideas, insisting that though he plans to move the family to Yemen for better religious education and that Rifdah will be educated, ultimately, she will be a housewife.

Koran By Heart is one of the best documentaries HBO has offered this summer. It debuts at 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific and 8 p.m. Central tonight on HBO. 

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

Herman Cain ramps up the anti-Muslim bigotry, says communities should be able to ban mosques

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There is ample evidence out there that Tea Party pizza mogul Herman Cain, a presidential favourite for many in the GOP, is an ignorant anti-Muslim bigot. For example, he has proposed a loyalty test for Muslim Americans who would serve in his administration (not that he'll ever be president). In this regard, he fits in nicely with the Republican Party, which houses a good deal of such bigotry, from Peter King to Allen West to Newt Gingrich to so many others, bigotry widespread throughout the grassroots.

Well, Cain is ramping up the bigotry, or at least just being more open about his own views:

Herman Cain says voters across the country should have the right to prevent Muslims from building mosques in their communities.

In an exchange on "Fox News Sunday," the Republican presidential contender said that he sided with some in a town near Nashville who were trying to prevent Muslims from worshiping in their community.

"Our Constitution guarantees the separation of church and state," he said. "Islam combines church and state. They're using the church part of our First Amendment to infuse their morals in that community, and the people of that community do not like it. They disagree with it."

Asked by host Chris Wallace if any community could ban a mosque if it wanted to, Cain said: "They have a right to do that."

Cain, an African-American who grew up during the civil rights era, claimed he was not discriminating against Muslims. He said it was "totally different" than the fight for racial equality because there were laws prohibiting blacks from advancing.

Totally different? Hardly. What we're talking about is the right to worship freely and without either government interference. And any community that were to ban a mosque would be interfering in the exercise of that right. The fact that Cain is black and supposedly knows firsthand what such discrimination is all about only adds to the craziness of his position.

What's more, Cain apparently knows nothing about Islam. Are there some Muslims who wish to combine church and state? Sure, but in America there are many more Christians who do. Is Cain proposing that communities should be permitted to ban churches? Of course not.

But this is just the sort of bigoted fearmongering that spews forth from Republicans these days: Muslims are all the same, all trying to impose Sharia law on an otherwise free society. Which, of course, is utterly ridiculous. The vast majority of American Muslims are good, decent, and honest people who only wish to live like other Americans while also being free to worship as they please. And, again, if you really want to find religious types who seek to "infuse their morals," you need look no further than the Christianist right, a core Republican consituency. They're the ones who want to restrict your freedom in the name of their "faith."

But of course it's easier to scapegoat Muslims, especially if you're a Republican trying to win over your party's core supporters. As Doug Mataconis writes at Outside the Beltway, "[t]he Herman Cain boomlet is dying, because its becoming clear that everything that comes out of his mouth is utter nonsense." Yes, the boomlet is fading, but he still has his support, which goes to show that this sort of bigoted nonsense actually has some traction in today's Republican Party.

For more, see Think Progress, which also has the video (see below). We've also written previously about the efforts to build a Muslim community center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, efforts that have met with violent resistance from locals in lockstep with the likes of Herman Cain -- see here and here.

Combating evil: What Islam and the Qur'an are really all about

Guest post by Hamid M. Khan 

Hamid M. Khan, an Adjunct Professor of Islamic Law at the University of Colorado Law School, is a Rule of Law Adviser with the U.S. Institute of Peace in Kabul, Afghanistan, and a fellow with the Truman National Security Project in Washington D.C.

(Ed. note: This is Hamid's sixth guest post at The Reaction. You can find his previous posts here (on Pakistan), here and here (on Obama's Cairo address), here (on revolution in Iran), and here (on being Muslim in America). Yes, he's becoming a regular. -- MJWS)

********** 

Last Friday's heinous attack on U.N. workers in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, which was prompted by the burning of a Qur'an by Florida Pastor Terry Jones, serves as a stark reminder that is all not well within Islam. As an American Muslim working to promote peace and stability in Afghanistan on behalf of the United States, I am appalled by the senseless violence instigated by those claiming to share a religious faith and once again leads to question how Muslims choose to uphold their own faith. 

Few Muslims quibble with the notion that the Qur'an is the word of God. Moreover, it is generally accepted that the Qur'an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad some fourteen centuries ago. While the Qur'an is found in book form today, it began as an oral tradition and hence, even to this day, millions of Muslims follow that tradition by memorizing lines from the original Arabic. Coincidently, the content of the Qur'an (which is about the size of the New Testament) largely remains a mystery to most believers since the original version is in sixth-century Arabic and more than 85 percent of Muslims today are not Arabic speakers. Moreover, even if one could begin to grapple with the Arabic, the Qur'an is filled with allusions, allegories, puns, and an unmatched poetic style. Consequently, Muslims will often turn to religious leaders to understand its content, leaders who often know little more than their fellow believers. Nonetheless, every believer bears personal responsibility for understanding what the Qur'an truly says. 

The Qur'an's contents, like other religious tomes, is varied. Despite notions to the contrary, less than five percent of the text is devoted to legal matters. Moreover, the most mentioned person in the Qur'an is the patriarch Moses, followed by Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary is mentioned more in than the Qur'an than she is in the Bible. In fact, the Qur'an takes pains to codify the tolerance of other faiths and repeatedly recounts how struggling for "true" faith has always been measured by those who have withstood ridicule and derision and remained steadfast. The reality is that most of the Qur'an is dedicated to the principles of mercy, compassion, grace, salvation, and love. However, this message is not for the edification of Pastor Terry Jones but for Muslims as a whole. 

During my lifetime, I have witnessed in horror as Muslims have taken to the streets in fits of rage to attack anyone and everyone, all in the name of "defending" Islam. Whether it's violence spurred by cartoons of the Prophet or publication of The Satanic Verses, or physical attacks on those who would disagree with Islam and its practices, the reality remains: not only have these Muslims willfully ignored the Qur'an, they have betrayed the faith they claim to uphold.

Islam, a faith comprised of over 1.3 billion followers, has endured for fourteen centuries and influenced the course of history itself. Islam's "golden age," where it was seen as a force for intellectualism, philosophy, science, and understanding, has today been eclipsed by puritans bent on reducing the faith to a series of simplistic notions, turning the Qur'an into an irrational legal code that promotes violence, authored by a bloodthirsty God.

Muslims need to accept that, inasmuch as they believe in the Qur'an and Islam, they would do best to uphold the Qur'an by living up to its central tenets: compassion, mercy, and tolerance. They need to accept that the best "defense" against the calumny of others is explained by the Qur'an itself: combat evil with good. Muslims need to demonstrate that Islam is found in more than just the Qur'an, that it is expounded by steadfastness and acts of goodness and love. And it should be remembered that, no matter what, evil cloaked in faith is never acceptable, especially to God.

Passion play

By Capt. Fogg

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

___________

If you managed to get through grade school, you've read this many times, but it never seems to influence the way Americans act or feel: a syndrome that seems more influenced by mob psychology and sectarian chauvinism than anything else. Of course, it's long been this way and we've long been a xenophobic and gullible nation, but with the advent of round-the-clock swineherds like Fox News, the grunting and squealing of feral-hog America is drowning out the voice of our founding fathers and of decent men and women everywhere. 

[E]ven if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service. (Ben Franklin) 

The same folks who want to persecute Muslims for their religion and prohibit the free exercise thereof will assert, without twitching their nostrils at the smell of hypocrisy, that this is a Christian nation and that Christian laws, whatever they might be, supersede our national laws about abortion, birth control, spending government funds on Christian activities, and browbeating children into theological submission. It's not okay that a Muslim man doesn't want to drink alcohol or a Jew doesn't want to eat pork, but it's fine that a Christian pharmacist refuses to dispense condoms. Damn the Constitution, we're a Christian nation. The laws of other religions need not apply, and, in fact, although there is no chance whatever that the United States will adopt the Qur'an as a replacement for the Constitution and its body of laws, it's not enough for the grunting pigs of God who would like to make the free exercise of Islam illegal. 

He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3) 

The latest crusade seems to be about portraying every comment by every Muslim as an example of Sharia, from a cabby in Detroit asking that he not be forced to transport alcohol to someone praying in Arabic in front of the White House. According to one witness, he was asking for a blessing on those "Christians" who seemed oblivious to the staggering irony of a mob mocking and cursing a bearded man, bent in prayer, forgiving them for persecuting him. None of this has anything to do with any effort to replace our laws and courts with Islamic laws or Islamic judges, nor can it since no effort exists. As to the rules of private observance, let's let only Christians do that! The only credible attempt of theocratic pretenders to the throne is of course by self-styled Christians, as the porcine squeals of the glossolalians Palin and Huckabee would prove. 

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen... (George Washington) 

Perhaps it's fortunate that such people are stupid enough to hoist themselves with their own petty petards. You'll recall, and perhaps with a smile, Oklahoma's attempt to thwart the non-existent Islamic takeover by attempting a tin-foil-hat law banning all religious commands -- which in effect banned the Jewish commandments they had been trying to insert into American life, but we can't afford to depend on their congenital stupidity when so much is at stake. And yes, it takes a stupid man to think that somehow Americans would decide to write Sharia or Islamic tribal practices into American law in open defiance of the Constitution or that the tiny percentage of Muslim Americans would somehow magically or accidentally do it by themselves.

The courts have decisively ruled that the establishment and free exercise clauses forbid the federal and state governments to prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion or atheism. The Torah, the Bible, the Qur'an, the Gita, the works of Nietzsche: state or federal government may not adopt any of them as preferable, much less mandatory. But we're a little people, a silly people -- greedy, barbarous, and cruel people, if I might borrow from T.E. Lawrence -- and a cowardly, ignorant, and hateful people as well. "Conservative" legislators continue and will persist in thriving on our traditional sins by inventing threats that must be countered by measures to accelerate our inexorable descent into loserhood. They'll continue to demonize the way their predecessors demonized German, Irish, Italian, Mexican, African, Catholic, Jewish, Chinese, and Indian immigrants, and history will continue to prove them wrong.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Something to renew faith

By Greg Prince

It's been an interesting weekend, following an exhausting week on many fronts.

Here's a story from Egypt that brings a smile to my face, and goes far toward reminding us that humanity really is worth saving.

Remember this story next time a wingnut tries to tell you there is no such thing as moderate Muslims:

Egypt's majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as "human shields" for last night's mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

"We either live together, or we die together," was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the "human shield" idea.

Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular Muslim televangelist and preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.

"This is not about us and them," said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly Street. "We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together."

(Cross-posted from Greg Prince's Blog.)

Are Arizonans stupid as well as ignorant and bigoted?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Sorry, I don't mean to disparage every single Arizonan. Many, after all, are opposed to, if not fighting, the state's draconian anti-immigrant law, for example. But explain this:

In an era saturated with absurd moments of anti-Muslim fear-mongering, mosques have become a touchstone for Islamophobia. Even unbuilt mosques have set off a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in Tennessee, Texas, California, and most notably, New York. Not to be outdone, the people of Pheonix, AZ were quick to call foul over the appearance of a dome-like structure along an interstate. But in the clamor over the impending Muslim takeover, these Arizonans missed one small detail — the building is not a Mosque, it's a church.

That's right, a church. Not that it would be any more acceptable if it were a mosque, but this little episode shows just how insane the fear-the-Other climate is at the moment, especially in Arizona.

And I would note that this climate of fear, bordering on outright paranoia (if it's not there already), has been manufactured largely by conservative propaganda that targets certain vilified groups, namely, Hispanics and Muslims.

"It is unfortunate that people are so intolerant to differences that they aren't willing to see that the place of worship is not a mosque," said Tayyibah Amatullah of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Arizona chapter. But with so many high-profile figures selling unfounded, anti-Muslim fear to the public, is it any wonder that all many Americans can see in Islam is a phantom menace? 

Nope, not at all.

Oklahoma is OK

By Capt. Fogg

Says the tautological and largely meaningless slogan on their license plates. No, Oklahoma isn't an Apache word for xenophobia, but it may well become an English metaphor, and it certainly isn't OK with regard to having a clue about the consequences of their actions.

Yes, the strict constitutionalist nativists of the Southwest would love to be able to pick and choose what part of that document they feel comfortable with and ignore other parts that suggest that Oklahoma cannot set requirements for U.S. citizenship all by itself nor can neighboring Arizona forbid certain kinds of employment to those with an accent that doesn't suggest Aryan Abstammung, even though they did.

They're apparently also stupid enough to fear that Oklahoma judges will decide to opt out of federal, state, and local law and enforce Sharia, or Islamic law, since so many of them are Islamic fundamentalists in disguise or likely to spontaneously become one. You know, like some people just burst into flames or get abducted by aliens. You really can't trust any judge not to decide to enforce Liechtenstein law or that of France or Andorra, you know, and so they voted for the Save Our State amendment.

It may just work. It may save Oklahoma's free thinkers, Buddhists, Hindus and adherents to Native religions from being beat over the head with selected Jewish laws in the name of being a Christian nation. Sorry Tea folk, when you ban the courts from referencing "laws of another nation" that didn't apply in the first place, you ban the Ten Commandments as well as the other 603 Biblical laws you're not literate enough to know about. Mount Sinai wasn't just outside Muskogee, you know and Israel remains a foreign country.

Just as Sharia is binding only on Muslims, Jewish Mitzvot are only binding on Jews and if any are enforced in the courts, it's coincidental. Muslims have laws against murder and theft too, you know and some of theirs seem more liberal than ours. Sometimes ignorance opens the door to enlightenment.

Of course these landlocked Okies have forgotten that treaties the U.S. government enters into with foreign entities do have the force of law ( unless those treaties were made with the various Indian tribes without the slightest intention of good faith ) and so refusing to enforce them is unconstitutional and not good for international business, if there is any in Oklahoma.

Just can't win, can ya? So thanks for standing up for the first amendment, cowboy -- maybe you really are OK.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Am I the last person left with long-term memory?

By Edward Copeland

You will see me shedding no tears for Juan Williams' firing from NPR. It's not a First Amendment issue. Free speech gives you the right to say whatever you want, but when you are a paid commentator, it doesn't protect you from getting the heave-ho from your employer when you say something stupid and are being promoted as a representative of their brand. Besides, a $2 million consolation prize from Fox News is a nice consolation prize for someone who is Fox's idea of a liberal the way that Alan Colmes was. The only real liberal I ever saw was on the only show Fox ever aired that used to be truly fair and balanced, "Fox NewsWatch." His name was Neal Gabler but he criticized the boss and co-workers too often so he got shown the door as did the impartial moderator Eric Burns and the show turned into a propaganda fest like every other program. (One of the replacement "liberals" was Juan Williams.)

Before I move on to my other reasons for why I think his NPR firing was long overdue, just let me add that the comment that got him axed showed his ignorance. He admitted getting nervous when he got on a plane and saw people dressed in "Muslim garb." None of the 9/11 hijackers wore Muslim garb, brain wizard. If you saw people dressed in Muslim garb, that probably would be more of an indication of safety.

Of course, I've disliked Williams since long before Fox News even existed. No one seems to remember (and no one would probably have remembered this week if not for the fortuitous timing of that famous Teabagger, Mrs. Clarence Thomas, calling Anita Hill for an apology) that Juan Williams is a sexist moron.

Back during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, Williams, thought of as a "liberal" wrote scathing columns against Anita Hill, saying her story was full of holes. What he didn't say was that he was sympathizing with Thomas because at the time he was being accused of sexual harassment by 50 (you read that right, that's why I put it in bold) Post employees and was disciplined, though it amounted to a slap on the wrist, considering the numbers involved.

Of course, though Firedoglake remembered that and reported it today, I seem to be the only one that recalls that Williams scoured his copy of the novel The Exorcist to find a passage he remembered about a pubic hair and a drink and showed it to Arlen Specter who then brought it up in his questioning of Anita Hill to accuse her of having read the book and having it inspire her to make up the pubic hair on the Coke can incident.

One positive thing did come out of re-opening the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill can of worms: It inspired Thomas' former girlfriend to finally come forward and back up her charges of how he was obsessed with porn and would comment on female office workers' breast sizes. We've always known he committed perjury (I mean, he never discussed Roe v. Wade? Yeah, right), but this is more evidence of it. Still, nothing will come of it. They don't have the balls to pursue the last administration's far more serious crimes, you think they'd try to go after a Supreme Court justice for perjury? They wouldn't have even done that back in 1991.

To me, the most sickening display is watching all the talking heads on all sides of the political spectrum take to the airwaves to defend Williams because they all are on the same D.C. party circuit. Truth doesn't matter. Actions don't matter. No one remembers anything.

Isaac and Ishmael

By R.K. Barry

Just after 9/11, the producers of the The West Wing realized that, as a show all about politics, they couldn't very well ignore recent events. At the same time, they couldn't really make 9/11 an integral part of the show as the The West Wing didn't track current events but rather had its own story line about an imagined White House. The compromise was to have senior White House staff find themselves in a "lock-down" with a group of high school students during what turns out to be a not serious security breach. The episode was called Isaac and Ishmael.

For the episode, White House staff engage the students about a number of issues including the causes of terrorism and how to address it. In what I thought at the time was an extremely interesting exchange, the character of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman, played by Bradley Witford, asks the students what the American equivalent of Islamic terrorists would be. After some discussion, it is agreed that the Klu Klux Klan would fit the bill.

The point he was making was clear: sometimes extremists do awful things in the name of a twisted view of their own religion. But adherents to the same religion don't always believe all the same things (thank God). The KKK is ostensibly Christian, which you can tell by the crosses they like to burn, but very few decent church-going Americans would identify with them. Maybe we should start calling the KKK "Christian extremists" just in case the fact that not all Christians are extremists should need some clarification.

Watching Bill O'Reilly's recent appearance on The View reminded me of this West Wing episode. O'Reilly kept saying that the reason we shouldn't build a community centre within blocks of ground zero is because the terrorists who attacked America were Islamic. I know logic is not O'Reilly's strong suit, but he really should work on that and parhaps watch a few old episodes of the West Wing.

Another thing that bothered me greatly about what O'Reilly had to say is his blaring claim that 70% of Americans don't want the Islamic community centre there. I don't know, maybe that number is true, but what if it is? I have said this before and I will say it again, what if we did a poll of white southerners in the 1960s about whether or not schools and colleges in the south should be integrated? What do you suppose those numbers would look like?

For those who fell asleep during this part of their own education, America is a liberal democracy or constitutional democracy, not a direct democracy. We have a constitution that sets limits on what we can and can't do by a simple show of hands. I've always thought that was pretty sensible. For a bunch a people who talk a big game about adhering to the Constitution, O'Reilly and his bunch really have no idea what that would mean.

School's out.

(Cross-posted from Lippmann's Ghost.)

Newt Gingrich slams Sebelius, distorts reality, descends into madness

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Speaking at the right-wing Values Voters Summit (because, of course, greed and bigotry are values, too*) in Washington yesterday, Newt Gingrich said that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius should be removed from office, with a new Republican Congress "zeroing out her office," for "behaving exactly in the spirit of the Soviet tyranny" and for "represent[ing] left-wing thought police," both with respect to health-care reform.

Of course, she did and is nothing of the kind. What she wrote, in a letter to the insurance industry, is that the federal government "will not tolerate unjustified rate hikes." America's Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, contends that "Obamacare" is forcing them to raise premiums. In response, Sebelius wrote that that is simply not true, that "any potential premium impact" would be "marginal."

Gingrich, as you might expect, takes the insurance industry at its word. Needless to say, that is a stupid thing to do. The industry wants to maximize its profits and will do and say whatever it takes to do so. But it is also stupid to suggest that Sebelius is acting like a Soviet tyrant (and speaking for some "left-wing thought police" by challenging the very industry that wants to harm consumers by charging them more and blaming Obama. Gingrich is supposed to be a historian, is he not? He is supposed to be one of the smarter conservatives out there -- at least, that is what the media would have us believe, given how much respect and airtime they give him. But he clearly lacks any genuine appreciation for history -- history to him is the just past filtered through his partisan and ideological prisms -- and, once again, we see that neither he nor anything he says should be taken seriously.

Also in his address, Gingrich said that he is "totally opposed to any effort to impose sharia on the United States." But who exactly is talking about imposing fundamentalist Islamic law on America? Where is the evidence? Where is it happening? It isn't. This is fearmongering pure and simple, projected through those partisan and ideological prisms, and just the sort of anti-Muslim bigotry we've come to expect from Gingrich. (While he's talking specifically about sharia, the message is really that Muslims are not to be trusted, that Islam is essentially anti-American, and that all Muslims, backed by liberals/progressives/Democrats, are jihadists seeking to undo the Constitution and take over the country.)

Gingrich is moving further and further away from reality -- and he was never all that close to it to begin with. In his partisan and ideological fervor, he has become a spinner of lies and smears and exaggerations, willing, as ever, to traffic in utter nonsense, running his mouth off without anything to back up what he says, simply to try to score political points by playing on popular ignorance and fear, and to keep himself in the news, where he continues to get the media's attention for saying crazier and crazier things, and to maintain himself as a key player in conservative circles, which cheer harder the crazier and crazier things get. Like the rest of the right side of the political spectrum, he's descending ever more rapidly into madness.

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* Tweeted our good friend (and Reaction editor) Carol Gee yesterday, on the VVS: "Reminder: Repubs can have no exclusive claim to be 'values voters.' Dem voters value ideas like creativity, diversity, veracity, lucidity." Exactly.

The war of ideas

Guest post by Jared Stancombe 

Jared Stancombe, a 2009 graduate of Indiana University, is currently an analyst for a U.S. government agency responsible for national security. He is also in the officer selection process for the U.S. Marine Corps. He lives in Washington, D.C. 

Ed. note: Jared has been a frequent guest blogger at The Reaction. He has posted on Afghanistan and the Afghan War (here, here, and here), airline security (here), and the various threats to U.S. national security (here). -- MJWS

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The controversy over the proposed "Cordoba Center" in New York City has further demonstrated the toxic environment in which civil discourse takes place within the United States. One side states that it is their Constitutional right to build the center and that it will help develop relationships between people of other faiths to diminish perceived biases against the Muslim faith, while another side states that placing a "mosque" at Ground Zero is an offense to the families of the victims of 9/11 and that it could be a new base for Islamist militant terrorists. Demonstrations are held daily as the news pundits speak nearly 24/7 on the issue.

In Afghanistan, Afghans are rioting over the "International Burn a Qu'ran Day" recently proposed by Florida Pastor Terry Jones. General Petraeus and Defense Secretary Gates have personally pleaded with Pastor Jones to stop him from burning Islam's most sacred text.

In our connected world of social networking and 24-hour news, a little thing can make a huge difference given the right exposure. The fringe elements are gaining ground, showing an America that is fearful and hateful towards the Islamic faith. Republican congressmen and senators are using this environment to gather up potential votes before the midterm elections.

What does this show to the Muslims in America and all over the world? Muslims died alongside Christians, Jews, atheists, and people of other faiths in the Pentagon and the World Trade Center and on Flight 93. Muslims currently fight in the mountains of Afghanistan and in Iraq either in uniform or alongside our troops with local police forces, militias, and armies. Others have fled conflict in the Middle East in hopes that America will bring them a new, successful life, while others still have become prominent and vital members of American society. What does the current political environment tell these people? Are Muslims seen as a threat to American culture and the American way of life? How can America win the war of ideas while so many Americans themselves view Islam as an inherent threat?

Islam will never be a threat to America's freedom, independence, and culture. Just as countless other people of other faiths, creeds, and belief systems have, Islam has become a part of the national identity. Being American means believing in freedom and independence and that you're a part of a nation that will never back down in the face of tyranny and evil. Further incorporating Islam into the national identity, welcoming its spirituality and message of peace, will only enrich the American identity, not weaken it.

By burning Qu'rans and broadcasting that building a "mosque" at Ground Zero is akin to Nazis building a memorial next to the National Holocaust Museum, we are only showing our fear and disgust towards a faith and people that we need to help solve complex global social problems and make America safer. By broadcasting such claims, we are playing right into the hands of Islamist terrorists who want fuel to support their claim that America is at war against Islam.

How is America supposed to win a global war against terrorism if its message seems unjust and antithetical to the belief systems of the very people we must extend a hand to to solve the problem of militant Islamist terrorism? The Islamic world must view the distortion and perversion of their faith as the enemy, just as we see it. Fighting terrorism is not just about how many boots are in the ground but in the strength of conflicting ideologies. Militant Islam cannot win in the face of the American philosophy of freedom -- we must show our true American colors by embracing Islam while the terrorists preach evil and practice tragedy.

Florida church responds to Petraeus, Koran burning likely still a go

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Updating my post from yesterday.)

"A Florida pastor told CNN on Tuesday that while his congregation still plans to burn Qurans to protest the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the church is 'weighing' its intentions." What exactly does that mean? "We have firmly made up our mind, but at the same time, we are definitely praying about it," said Pastor and Chief Bigot Terry Jones.

The church is apparently "taking seriously" (CNN's words) General Petraeus's warning, but Jones, refusing to back down, turned it back on Petraeus: "The general needs to point his finger to radical Islam and tell them to shut up, tell them to stop, tell them that we will not bow our knees to them." And it looks like the burning will be a go: "We are burning the book. We are not killing someone. We are not murdering people."

No, but as Petraeus said, the burning could lead directly to more killing. And, what's more, while Jones points to "radical Islam," the Koran is the holy text not just for this small subset of Muslims but for all Muslims. Jones can try to rationalize all he wants. This is hatred pure and simple.

Free expression is a deeply American right, but Americans should be outraged by this deeply anti-American expression of hatred. The rest of the world will certainly be watching, and taking notes.

Letting the terrorists win: Newt Gingrich and the "Ground Zero mosque"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Like a shark drawn to blood, Newt Gingrich, whose nature apparently is to pick at painful wounds in the body politic in order to score partisan points and, more important for him, to keep his name in the news and feed his massive sense of self-importance, is still beating the drum of bigotry in opposition to Park51, the "Ground Zero mosque" that is neither at Ground Zero nor, strictly speaking, a mosque. And, faced with a New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who has been nothing short of brilliant in articulating a defence of Park51 based on a lofty sense of what America is supposed to be all about, not to mention the reality that the power-that-be have given the go-ahead for Park51 despite the uproar on the right, Gingrich is coming up with all sorts of new and stupid arguments and obstacles to block it. At TPM, Rachel Slajda has the latest:

In a radio interview today, he said he wants the national government to step in and stop the developers from building the Islamic community center by whatever means necessary.

"I think the Congress has the ability to declare the area a national battlefield memorial because I think we should think of the World Trade Center as a battlefield site; this is a war," he said, apparently thinking that if Ground Zero was a national park, Park51 would be restricted from building near it.

And if that fails, he said, the state government should step in and use its considerable power to stymie the development. 

Funny, isn't it, how the anti-government Gingrich wants the government to step in and tell a private religious organization what to do? I suppose it's okay for the government to be heavy-handedly oppressive when it comes to Muslims but not when it comes to Christians or the "free" market. Gingrich certainly wouldn't want the government interfering in his world, telling him what to do, and yet government control is a fine weapon to wield against undesirables.

The reality, of course, is that Park51 isn't at Ground Zero. It's some distance away from it. Even if Ground Zero were to be declared some sort of "battlefield site," some sort of eternally sacred area, there would still be any number of private interests -- religious, commercial, etc. -- in the area. If Park51 should move, why not, say, restaurants and sex shops, video stores and whatever else is in the neighbourhood? Because "this is a war," says Gingrich, which grossly misrepresents what is actually going on. Park 51 would be a Muslim community center, but, as President Bush himself stressed (to his credit), the U.S. isn't at war with Islam. It would be one thing if Park51 were some sort of pro-al Qaeda, pro-jihadist facility, a terrorist training camp, but of course it's not. In attacking it, and calling for it to be moved, conservatives like Gingrich are labelling all Muslims anti-American jihadists, an appallingly bigoted and disrespectful thing to do -- not least because there are many Muslims proudly serving in the U.S. military and because there were American Muslims who died on 9/11. (And, as has been noted, there's even a mosque at the Pentagon.)

Not that Gingrich cares about any of this. To him, this is merely a fantastic opportunity to keep up a visible media presence on an issue that Republicans have manufactured, with the media happy to oblige, to attack Democrats ahead of the midterms. But in portraying the "war" as both a religious and a civilizational conflict, he is playing directly, through fearmongering, to the deep-rooted nativism and ignorance of a large swathe of the American populace, not to mention of the Republican base.

I return to Bloomberg, who in contrast to Gingrich has spoken so eloquently, and so nobly:

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.

This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies' hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.

I am tempted to say that Gingrich and those with him on this issue are with the terrorists -- and I will say that, because they are. In opposing Park51 they are proving to be very much like those attacked America on 9/11, not in terms of their violence but in terms of their articulation of a worldview that pits "us" against "them," that divides people instead of seeking to unite them, that clamours for war instead of working for peace, that mirrors the hatred and bigotry of our enemies with hatred and bigotry of our own. And in trying desperately to capitalize on and benefit politically from this issue, they are indeed letting the terrorists win.

America is better than this, is it not? America is better than Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin and all the others who are waving the flag and pointing it menacingly at Muslims, calling for the government essentially to crack down on a specific religion just because a tiny minority of that religion attacked America, and because they so badly want this "war" to rule our lives.

Gingrich passes himself off as an intellectual, but he's really just a thug who's read a few books and can speak coherently. He basks in bigotry and ignorance on this issue, as on so many others, and, no, Americans should not stand for it.

"Sharia" and American secularism

by Peter Henne

It's not often that academic issues like the relationship between Islamic thought and contemporary politics become relevant. So I was excited to see the Washington Post's story on the nature of sharia. This is connected to the Park51 debate, although the question of whether Muslims must follow sharia like an instruction book--and what this means for American society--periodically arises. The last time was an op-ed by Edward Luttwak claiming President Obama is a Muslim under Islamic law, and that all Muslims will be compelled to oppose him as an apostate.

The story includes blurbs by several experts--including Gallup's Dalia Mogahed--dispelling myths about sharia's totalizing influence over Muslims. And they are right; anyone who has spent even a semester studying Islam will have learned that sharia is not a fixed set of laws, but a set of principles drawn from diverse sources and about which there is much disagreement. Moreover, even if sharia does contain guidelines for Muslims, this does not mean all Muslims will follow it in their daily lives; Muslims are no more likely than Christians to check with their Scriptures before making a decision. This was covered well in the responses to Luttwak's piece.

The renowned Islamic scholar Olivier Roy--in his classic The Failure of Political Islam--describes sharia as characterized by both autonomy and incompleteness. That is, it exists independently of power structures but is constantly contested. The specific application of sharia in any context is based on contingent political, economic and societal factors, not any inherent aspect of Islam. Saying that sharia will lead Muslims in America to literally follow all aspects of their religious writings would be the same as arguing that medieval Catholic Canon Law not only represents all of Christianity, but drives the behavior of contemporary Catholics.

Of course, this does not address the question of what the effects may be of the infusion of Muslim values--whatever form they take--into American politics and civil society. This is a question that is worth pondering; we just need to ponder over the right facts.

What the fight over Park51, the planned Muslim community center near Ground Zero, is really all about

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We really are in the dog days of summer.

Americans, apparently with nothing better to worry about, are still clashing heatedly over Park51, the planned Muslim community center (note: it's not really a mosque) near (note: not at) Ground Zero. I wrote about it before I went away on vacation a couple of weeks ago, my co-bloggers addressed it during my absence, and here I am writing about it upon my return. It's the story that just won't go away -- and understandably so, perhaps, as it has all the easy-to-digest and easy-to-regurgitate elements needed to keep the media interested and eager to feed it, including the language of the culture wars and the simplistic, self-serving conservative-spun narrative of us versus them, good versus evil, "America" (the distorted idea of America according to current conservative ideology) versus Islam(ism).

I don't need to rehash the clash here, and I probably don't need to restate my position on it. But let's go back to August 4 for a moment, when I responded to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's brilliant speech in support of the community center:

The conservatives attacking the "Ground Zero mosque" -- which is neither at Ground Zero nor a mosque -- do not honour those who died on 9/11, nor the Constitution, nor America itself. Rather, they spew bigotry, anti-Muslim bigotry, and seek to divide the country into "us" and "them," in so doing playing right into the hands of those who question America's commitment to its long-held values, proving America's enemies right. And in opposing the construction of the community center, these conservatives are proving to be a lot like al Qaeda and bin Laden, intolerant religious extremists who reject religious conciliation and understanding.

America should be better than that, and better than its enemies, and Michael Bloomberg clearly wants it to be. Ground Zero will remain what it has become, sacred ground, no matter what surrounds it, but the Islamic cultural center will be proof that America actually lives up to its values and principles -- to freedom -- even in the face of uncompromising adversity.

Nothing has changed -- other than the conservative attacks, which have gotten uglier, nastier, and stupider -- and I stand by that today.

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Bloomberg has continued to champion the community center, putting in the larger context of what this is all about. As he put it yesterday:

But if we say that a mosque and community center should not be built near the perimeter of the World Trade Center site, we would compromise our commitment to fighting terror with freedom.

We would undercut the values and principles that so many heroes died protecting. We would feed the false impressions that some Americans have about Muslims. We would send a signal around the world that Muslim Americans may be equal in the eyes of the law, but separate in the eyes of their countrymen. And we would hand a valuable propaganda tool to terrorist recruiters, who spread the fallacy that America is at war with Islam.

Islam did not attack the World Trade Center -- Al-Qaeda did. To implicate all of Islam for the actions of a few who twisted a great religion is unfair and un-American. Today we are not at war with Islam -- we are at war with Al-Qaeda and other extremists who hate freedom.

A stirring speech, and a stirring articulation of what America should be fighting for.

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Let me be clear about something, though. While I applaud the Cordoba Initiative's efforts to bridge the divide between Islam and the West, as well as to "[seek] to actively promote engagement through a myriad of programs, by reinforcing similarities and addressing differences," as it states on its website, it's not like I think Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the head of Cordoba (which is closely involved with Park51), is such a wonderful guy. As Christopher Hitchens noted at Slate on Monday, Cordoba "full of euphemisms about Islamic jihad and Islamic theocracy." That might be overstating it somewhat -- Rauf is closer to Fox News (as Jon Stewart has pointed out in some fantastic reporting recently) than to jihadism or theocracy -- but it's fair to say, I think, that Rauf's record is not without its troubling points. (Fox News is gleefully reporting Rauf's remarks made at a 2005 conference in Australia that "[w]e tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than Al Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims." But Rauf obviously wasn't excusing al Qaeda, he was just pointing out an undeniable fact, one that Americans, who generally have no idea what the world thinks of them, and why, would apparently rather ignore.)

As a liberal, I agree with Hitchens that tolerance must be a two-way street. Rauf, Cordoba, and Park51 ought to be tolerated, not least in a country that claims to value liberty and diversity, but there must also be tolerance by Muslims as well. And, yes, tolerance is sorely lacking in some quarters of the Muslim world, including among some American Muslims. (But, then, it is also sorely lacking in many, many quarters of American society, including among conservatives, as this clash has highlighted.) So while I object to the efforts to stop the community center, I also object to efforts, whether by Muslims or non-Muslims, to restrict liberty generally. America should be welcoming of Muslims and Islam, but, in America, Muslims and Islam also need to play by America's rules.

That applies, say, to Christian fundamentalists as well. I abhor Islamic theocracy, but I also abhor Christian or any other kind of theocracy. Liberals, after all, must be vigorous in the defence of liberty and must not let tolerance subvert freedom. There is nothing wrong with not tolerating theocracy and jihadism.

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But let us not go too far the other way either. What we must strive for, even as we promote and defend liberty, is balance. The question comes down to what ought to be tolerated.

It would be one thing, obviously, if Rauf were setting up a terrorist training facility at Park51. That would be acceptable neither close to Ground Zero nor anywhere else. But he isn't. He's involved with setting up a community center that "will be dedicated to pluralism, service, arts and culture, education and empowerment, appreciation for our city and a deep respect for our planet. Park51 will join New York to the world, offering a welcoming community center with multiple points of entry," one that "[u]phold[s] respect for the diversity of expression and ideas between all people." And the project is hardly disrespectful of the victims of 9/11: "[T]here won't be any views of the Ground Zero memorial from the building. To honor those killed on September 11th, we have planned for a public memorial within our future facility as well as reflection space open to all.
"

But of course the demented conservative worldview has no place for such things, so inflamed is it with fear, hatred, and loathing. Which means the clash isn't over, not with Republicans hoping to cash in politically on a manufactured controversy like this come November, not with conservatives seething with rage and spewing propaganda, and not with the media more than happy to play into conservatives' hands by keeping the story alive.

The fight for liberty and diversity, for the very heart of what it means to be American, must continue, even as the un-American ideas and activities of conservatives spin further and further to the extreme.

Outrage to the Muslim community center has nothing to do with a building a Muslim community center or Ground Zero

By Creature

No shit.

Maybe one day Sharia law will will overcome our Constitution, but that's the risk we take we take by having a Constitution in the first place. If this does happen it will not be because the Constitution failed, it will be because we failed our Constitution.

It continually amazes me that those who love to quote the Constitution have so little faith in it.

Florida church plans Koran burning on 9/11

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Floridian Capt. Fogg, in my view one of the blogosphere's finest commentators on the hateful antics of the religious right, may have something to say about this, but I just couldn't let it go without a few brief remarks. Here's the deal:

In protest of what it calls a religion "of the devil," a nondenominational church in Gainesville, Florida, plans to host an "International Burn a Quran Day" on the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The Dove World Outreach Center says it is hosting the event to remember 9/11 victims and take a stand against Islam. With promotions on its website and Facebook page, it invites Christians to burn the Muslim holy book at the church from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

"We believe that Islam is of the devil, that it's causing billions of people to go to hell, it is a deceptive religion, it is a violent religion and that is proven many, many times," Pastor Terry Jones told CNN's Rick Sanchez earlier this week.

Jones and his church are extreme even by American evangelical standards, and many Christians are joining Muslims and others in opposing this reprehensible event. But there's a reason much of the religious right is referred to as the "American Taliban," and the reason is right here.

The only good thing, I suppose, is that with Jones and Dove the hate is right out in the open -- for all to see, for all to react to, for all to fight against -- including on Facebook and YouTube, where they spread their intolerance. Most of the right's sectarian bigotry, after all, is couched in euphemism or otherwise kept hidden, or expressed indirectly, as with the current conservative attack, led by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, on the Ground Zero mosque (which, as Fogg has rightly noted, is neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero).

Jones and Dove are anti-Islam but also anti-anything that doesn't accord with their extremist Christianity:

Targeting another group it calls "godless," the Dove center is also hosting a protest against Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe, who is openly gay, on Monday at Gainesville's City Hall. The group previously fought -- unsuccessfully -- to derail Lowe's election campaign.

"We protest sexual perversion because the Bible protests it... What is acceptable to today's leadership becomes acceptable to tomorrow's society," the church says in its blog entry about the event.

I am tempted to say that I would like to see the good people of Gainesville rise up and destroy this awful church, or for anti-hate laws to bring it down. But no -- freedom of expression and all that. Instead, all Americans, and all decent and civilized people everywhere, should express their disgust at this expression of hatred, just as they ought to express their disgust at the Taliban and all those like it, and hold Jones and Dove up as prime representatives of the forces of darkness and division that continue to plague our society and threaten the peace and security of the world, from Gainesville to Kabul.