David Skinner’s recent Dec. 16 column, “What Matters Most,” is equally troubling and ignorant.
In it, Dave poses the question: “Can all Muslims, refugee or not, successfully assimilate into American society and internalize American ideals?”
The fact is, this question has been answered, time and time again, by the millions of Americans of Muslim faith who already live, work, play and worship in the United States and have for centuries. It was answered by the Bill of Rights, which the Founding Fathers wrote to protect all religions, expressly including Muslims, Hindus, Jews and Christians under the umbrella of the First Amendment.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote: “It does me no injury whether my neighbor says there are twenty gods or no god; it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket.”
Perhaps Mr. Skinner has never met a Muslim American. I have lived next door to them, played soccer with them, taken classes taught by them, ridden Greyhound buses driven by them, watched them box and play basketball on television, put my child under their care for medical attention.
I was raised Christian, but my dad often had foreign students of many faiths whom we had over for dinner and who hosted us in their homes. (I remember my mom scrambling to show one Muslim guest the label on the jar of Bac’n Bits she habitually sprinkled in the mashed potatoes, to reassure him they were a soybean product, not pork. He was mightily relieved and she was deeply embarrassed.)
The point is, like most of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, they were regular people, just getting by following the creed that made the most sense to them.
But now Skinner, and others like him, say that Muslims somehow must prove they belong. That something about them doesn’t “fit” with American ideals. That’s disgusting. And it’s an insult to the 5 to 12 million Americans who worship Allah every day, while paying taxes, serving in the military and otherwise contributing to American society.
Yes, these are scary times. The shootings and bombings in San Bernardino and Paris do require us to be on guard against those who would do us harm. But they also require us to guard our own American principles, and not allow our fear to cloud our vision and judgment.
Timothy McVeigh, a professed Christian patriot, killed hundreds when he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City. We didn’t ask if Christians could “internalize” American values, because we understood that McVeigh’s views were a perversion of patriotism and Christianity not a reflection of it. Likewise, the butchers of ISIS should not be mistaken for the vast majority of Muslims who are as appalled as anyone else by their barbarism.
We must not let our fear make us forget that America is a nation of refugees, and those fleeing the mayhem in Syria are, today, victims of terrorism, not perpetrators of it.
As Christians, we should not forget that Christ himself was a refugee, whose family fled a bloody, violent dictator, fleeing to Egypt to escape Herod.
I have known Dave for a long time and honestly believe he means well. I will not say the same for the politicians today who are using fear and ignorance as a wedge issue, pitting American against American in order to gain some political edge or grab media attention. That is an old, old political slight of hand that must continuously called out and denounced.
Meanwhile, Merry Christmas to all. No exceptions.
Ben Long lives in Kalispell