I say let him!
One of the wonderful things about this country is our freedom. Absolute freedom is the ability to make choices without being hindered by others in the process of choosing. Clearly, we do not have absolute freedom in our country today, but we pride ourselves on our freedom. It is the center of what makes this nation great. One of the cornerstones of our nation, and who we are as a nation, is our ability to accept other religions and integrate them into our culture.
At least, that’s what I believed until I read this article on USA Today and saw the following comment from Dennis Prager.
“He should not be allowed to do so,” Prager wrote, “not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American culture.”
He said Ellison, a convert from Catholicism, should swear on a Christian Bible — which “America holds as its holiest book. … If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress.”
America’s holiest book? What country did you grow up in Dude? I grew up in the Bible Belt, and I was never led to believe that America did not recognize other books as being holy depending on the faith that you choose to practice. Fact is, this man did not choose Christianity and he did not choose “God”. He chose the Koran and he chose Allah. Personally, I believe that a sworn oath from a man of faith, to the deity that he must later reconcile his life with when all is said and done is a heck of a lot more trustworthy than anything he might swear on a holy tome of some other faith.
Contrary to what this man’s idea of what American culture is, there is a reason why we’re the “Great American Melting Pot”. That is more a part of our culture than any isolationist crap that you might hear spewed on the news by pundits that don’t have a clue who the American people really are. We are many cultures, blending into one. That is the beauty of America. That is the true prize of our nation and of being a citizen in this country. There is nothing like America anywhere else in the world. People with closed minds who cannot accept another’s faith, skin color, or other differences, don’t deserve to call themselves American.
In this country, we have the right to choose our own faith and unless we’re willing to create the possibility that the Muslims will become the Jews of the next millennium, this sort of ludicrous and senseless persecution of Muslims on our own soil must stop.
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