There is no stronger and destructive emotion than fear. The recent outpour of fear about religious intentions is not the result of bigots but, rather, well-meaning worriers. History proves it so.
Even so, I have a feeling that when the Founding Fathers wrote about freedom of religion they weren’t messing with us.
Considering the fact that America was created due, in part, to the idea of religious freedom, it’s dumb-founding to think that we are still conversing in terms of religious freedom and discrimination against minority religions.
Recall the Separatists forming colonies to support a new confederate democracy in the name of freedom. The Separatists were also called Pilgrims. Does that ring a bell?
Freedom of religion is practically our mission statement. The current debate about the construction of an Islamic center in the lower Manhattan area of New York City is a prime example.
Countless protests and hours have been logged into cable news and political analysts remarking on what is a fundamental right for the Islamic community proves my theory that we’re still so fearful of religions when we have no idea about them.
Instead of embracing the diversity which defines us, we act fearful of any new ideas, considering blindly they will undermine our public democracy and compromise our freedom.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City said on, “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” there are strip joints and churches down there. It’s a diverse community.
While Bloomberg was speaking in jest, it’s a great observation of the diversity the United States portrays within just one downtown block, let alone the entire country.
Why not be proud of that?
Also, the idea that people can disapprove of where a religious sect wants their center to be located is ridiculous.
There is policy to prevent such discrimination.
The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act was passed in 2000 by unanimous vote in Congress due to concerns for minority religions being discriminated against through the disallowing of construction of any religious centers, despite denomination.
I’m not real sure we could even point fingers at where this all began because the hesitation to embrace religions seems to have been bred into
society.
Take the Know Nothing Movement for example. During the 1840s and lasting 10 years, serious concern for the overabundance of Irish and German immigrants caused people to wonder if the Anglo-Saxon catholic groups would take over and rewrite U.S. democracy as they knew it.
It strove to curb immigration and naturalization, leading us to believe that America would become governed by the Catholic government and answer to Rome.
It seems our concerns about President Obama’s religious affiliation has yet to be tempered by the fact that not one president has had an overriding influence on the religious tone of the country.
Eleven percent of the public thought President Barack Obama was Muslim last year, which is a smaller amount compared to the 18 percent in 2010.
The 7 percent increase leads me only to assume that many people opt to watch cable news and take the partisan talk show debate as actual news and not bold-face propaganda.
I have a feeling the people making these broad assumptions aren’t reading the finer points in the makeup of the United States of America.
Instead, most take assumptions and facts out of context, which is certainly not an original argumentative tactic.
Our baseless fears have written our entire history.
The right to religious freedom is a fundamental right that cannot be swayed by fear and doubt.
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Yet somehow, more than 60 years later after President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke those words in his first inaugural speech in 1933, we still fear and have yet to bear the confidence required to be such an open-minded and diverse nation.
By JESSICA MEYER
Sports Editor
jessmeye@umail.iu.edu