I’m getting concerned about an apparently escalading attitude against Muslims who are fellow American citizens and voters. But let me first digress to the familiar inscription carved on the base of the Statue of Liberty and written by Emma Lazarus. The Grand Lady of the Harbor invites people from every nation to our shores, saying, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuge of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tost, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
Let me reinterpret her invitation, but just for this modern moment in history, as if she were saying, “Give me your moderate people, your tolerant, your humble masses yearning to breathe free. . .”
I’ve been receiving email, especially since 9-11 and from Christian sources, that lead me to fear something is going haywire in our moral attitudes and political processes needed to creatively and positively address the issue of Islam as another major religion and voter block in this free nation. The issue is becoming so polarized that moderate people of any stripe are debunked. Toleration and humility are getting billed as expressions of weakness toward a perceived enemy. These are attitudes and words of war, not peace! At the very least such words express a social paranoia.
While recently reading just such an email from a friend, I was also reading an article with a completely different viewpoint. The core words that jumped out at me were, “There is, however, a way out. And it will come from the only place it can come from - the minds and souls of people of faith. It will come from the much derided moderate Muslims, tolerant Jews, and humble Christians.” These words were penned by a Roman Catholic, Andrew Sullivan, in Newsweek, 10/9/06. They were quoted at length by a Lutheran theologian and historian, Martin E. Marty, in his Context newsletter, January 2007.
During the primary elections last September, my wife Kaija had asked some of her fellow workers if they planned to vote. Many replied that they wait for the “real” elections in November, and that they felt the primaries didn’t mean anything! If most voters take this careless attitude, we will not be able to keep our freedom very long. America will become ripe for takeover by some real enemy, and it won’t be our Muslim Americans.