Jesus Loves Osama

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." So says Jesus in the book of Matthew. But Australian PM John Howard seems to think that Christian message is too radical: he's told a Baptist church in Sydney he wishes they'd create a less controversial sign than the one that reads "Jesus Loves Osama."

30-Day Muslim

This is remarkable television: Morgan Spurlock's TV series 30 Days invited Dave Stacey, a 33-year old insurance salesman from West Virginia, to "be" a Muslim for thirty days. A devout Christian, Stacey moves to Deerborne, Michigan, to live with the Haques', an American Muslim family of Pakistani descent. Ground rules: he must observe the religious practices of the family--eat what they eat, pray when they pray (five times a day, starting at 5:30 a.m.), and grow a beard.

It's a remarkable journey the very game Stacey goes on. He's open, yet firmly Christian, and while he joins in for prayer, he resists reciting the Arabic prayers because he doesn't know what they mean (when consulting with an imam, he's told about his reservations, "You're here to learn, not to believe."). When he learns what they mean, he still hesitates, not wanting to betray his own faith and heritage. He--and I watching along--learned so much about Islam, its relationship to Christianity and Judaism (the hijab is part of the Jewish faith, Mrs. Haque tells him), and the five pillars of the faith (belief in one god, prayer, charity, fasting, pilgrimage).

Learning Arabic, studying the Quran, even touring a Halal meat processing plant, he learns about Islam. He sees discrimination and suspicion. By the end, Stacey isn't converted to Islam, but he is, perhaps, to humanism. His hosts give him a send-off party, complete with a decorated cake bearing the phrase, "Let's agree to disagree." Still, as "reality" TV, it only goes so far. As a CAIR lawyer tells him:

"Over thirty days, you can get a little bit of flavor. But you know at the end of the day, after 30 days, you know you can home to your wife and kid, shave off your beard and go back to being a white, Anglo-American Christian. I don't have that luxury. I know inside they hate me for who I am."

Another excellent find by Peek.

Goode question: Would immigration reform have kept out Muslim convert Ellison?

In a letter reportedly sent to hundreds of constituents, Virginia Republican Rep. Virgil Goode warned what will happen if America doesn't "adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration":

"[T]here will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country."

After specifically referencing "the Muslim Representative from Minnesota," Goode states, "We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country."

A problem with his logic: curtailing immigration wouldn't have prevented Keith Ellison from "demanding the use of the Koran."

A US citizen from birth, Ellison converted to Islam when he was 19.

Read the letter here.

Fox News, Keith Ellison, and the "Nazi bible"

Al-Jazeera's English broadcast puts Fox News' "fair and balanced" tagline to a smell test by looking at its December 1 coverage of Keith Ellison's request to be sworn in on the Quran. With Dennis Prager at center screen, host Sean Hannity compares Islam's nearly 1500-year-old scriptures with an autobiographical screed written in 1925 by a genocidal-maniac-to-be.


Hannity asked:

"On what grounds will those of you defending this congressman's decision in his right to chose his favorite book... Would you allow him to choose Hitler's Mein Kampf, which is the Nazi bible?"

While Hannity's innuendo--linking the Quran and Mein Kampf in the same breath--is troubling, it's his use of the term "Nazi bible" that's surprising, especially since he and Prager are so concerned that Ellison honor the book most often used in oaths.

The term "bible," while deriving from the Greek for book (biblia) according to Webster, predominantly refers to either the Christian or Jewish holy books, not to political tracts. A "Nazi bible"--as the first find in a Google search of the phrase yields--would suggest, well, Hitler's bible.

Like the one the Führer commissioned in 1939; in an attempt to "Nazify" the church, Hitler ordered hand-picked theologians to "cleanse church texts of all non-Aryan influences" and revise the 10 Commandments to include 12, deleting several and adding these:

Keep the blood pure and your honour holy! Maintain and multiply the heritage of your forefathers. Always be ready to help and to forgive. Honour your Fuehrer and master!

Perhaps these modifications indicate my issue with the Ellison/Quran flap: what is being sworn is of greater import than what it's being sworn on.

After all, in Mein Kampf Hitler wrote that "today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”

Hitler, like anyone, was judged by his actions, those of a homicidal racist, rather than by his statements of faith. (The quote above continues: "By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.")

Congressman-elect Ellison will be rated--and berated--by the likes of Hannity and Prager, no doubt. But perhaps they could wait til after his first day in office to get started.

[A frequent rightwing commenter at Minnesota Monitor, where I crossposted his entry, seems to have a bigger problem with a mention of al-Jazeera than the utterings of Sean Hannity.]

And: The director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Dr. Stephen Feinstein, calls for the resignation of Dennis Prager from the US Holocaust Memorial Council for saying Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison shouldn't serve if he won't take his oath on the bible. Says Feinstein, "[E]veryone should see Prager's comments as bigotry enthroned... [H]is statements have single-handedly made it clear that one Jew does not understand the civic responsibilities of an organization whose board he represents."

Air Hijab.

Bahrain sprinter Raqaya al Ghasara won a gold medal at the 15th Asian Games on Monday. Aside from her 23.19-second 200-meter sprint, what's noteworthy about her performance was the full headscarf, or hajib, she wore. "Wearing traditional Muslim dress has encouraged me," she says. "It's not an obstacle - quite the opposite." Note, too, the Nike Swooshes adorning her full-body suit and hijab, suggesting that Muslim athletes are the latest to appear within the branding giant's aiming sight.

Next up: branded burqas?

(Thanks, Stephan.)

I Swear: CO radio host challenges Ellison's ethics, morality

Colorado AM radio host Mike Rosen questions whether Keith Ellison can "ethically and morally hold office" if he wishes to have a private swearing-in using the Quran instead of the bible (he also calls Ellison "a follower of Louis Farrakhan," despite Ellison's repudiation of the Nation of Islam's "propagation of bigoted and anti-Semitic ideas and statements.")

During his December 8 broadcast, Rosen said:

One of the reasons that traditionally people have taken oaths -- either serving as witnesses in trials or defendants, or being sworn in with the oath of office as president or a member of Congress -- one of the reasons people have put their hands on a, on the Judeo-Christian Bible -- which includes the Old Testament and the New -- is that this is one of the foundations of Western civilization, and it's also one of the foundational sources of our law. Moses was known as the lawgiver. The Ten Commandments have -- have had a great deal of influence over the creation of law in Western society. So it's consistent with that part of our society that qualifies as Caesar's element -- render unto Caesar what is Caesar's -- for people who serve in law-making and governing capacities to take an oath consistent with our foundation. For those who really believe that the Constitution is blasphemy, at least in parts when it conflicts with Islam -- these people have a right to their religious beliefs and they can operate in our society. But the question is, can they ethically and morally hold office?

Rosen's mention of courtroom procedures, however, fails to recognize that the bible needn't be used to swear in witnesses in court proceedings. Last summer, when Muslims in North Carolina attempted to donate copies of the Quran for courtroom oaths (and were refused), the Christian Science Monitor wrote:

Already, witnesses in American courts do not have to take a religious oath and can instead simply testify on pain of perjury. It's up to judges to decide what passes for an oath.

Most have apparently given other oaths wide latitude. In a federal terrorism case in 1997 in Washington D.C., for instance, the judge allowed Muslim witnesses to swear to Allah. And the practice isn't new: Mochitura Hashimoto, the Japanese submarine commander who testified in the court martial of a US Navy captain in 1945, was allowed by a military tribunal to swear on his beliefs of Shinto, the ancient religion of Japan.

As to Rosen's mention of the Ten Commandments, a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper in 1814 casts doubt on this notion:

[I]n answer to Fortescue Aland's question why the ten commandments should not now be a part of the common law of England? we may say they are not because they never were made so by legislative authority, the document which has imposed that doubt on him being a manifest forgery.

Further, Jefferson writes, British common law--which the American legal system is largely based upon--was established in England before Christianity arrived there:

...Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first Christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it...."

[Cross-posted at Minnesota Monitor.]

Rest in peace, Sister Rita

My favorite nun--and there have been quite a few--died: Sister Rita Steinhagen, peace activist, author, and Sister of St. Joseph, passed away yesterday afternoon. Steinhagen was a tireless opponent of militarism, protesting the School of the Americas in Georgia and organizing countless protests against local defense contractor Alliant Techsystems. At 70, she was incarcerated for tresspassing at Fort Benning and served six months; I was so moved by her chutzpah and resolve, I wrote her there (wish I could find her lengthy and thoughtful reply).

As Doug Grow recounts, she told the judge who sentenced her: "Your honor, I'm 70 years old today and I've never been in prison and I'm scared. I tell you, when decent people get put in jail for six months for peaceful demonstration, I'm more scared of what's going on in our country than I am of going to prison."

So long...