Dear Editor:
I was mistaken in my belief that anti-Islamic bigotry was becoming passé. I underestimated the amount of hate and fear, which could be stored in a small mind. Either you believe in religious freedom or you don’t. If not offending people was a pre-requisite for building religious institutions, there wouldn’t be any synagogues in America, and it would have taken a long time for any Catholic churches, too.
Islam is no more or less violent than any other religion. How many were killed and tortured by Christians over the centuries? Look at the Spanish Inquisition, the burnings at the stake and countless other atrocities. Look at the internecine bloodletting between different sects of Christianity during the Reformation. Look at the hundreds of thousands killed in Central America throughout the 1980s. Hitler wasn’t a Muslim. Look at Israelis recreating the Warsaw Ghetto in the Gaza strip. Look at Hindus murderous rampages against Muslims in India.
To equate the Sufi Moslems that want to build a temple in downtown Manhattan with terrorists is like blaming a Southern Baptist for an IRA bombing. Sufis are a peaceful, literary and artistic sect. But that is beside the point. It’s their right, and it’s none of our business. If the government starts dictating which religious group can build where, then the Constitution is a worthless piece of paper, and America has no soul.
Greg Ribot