Sept. 11, Mormon candidate challenge U.S. ideal of acceptance

By Susan Campbell
The Hartford Courant
Friday, August 24, 2007

For a country that prides itself on being a religious refuge, Americans like their public figures pious - but not overly so. And they like their religions straight, or at the very least, familiar.

So what to do with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a faith that, from all indications, is intensely personal and important to the Republican presidential candidate? Where do most Americans put Muslims, who in this country number roughly 6 million? And what to think about the Church of Scientology, which warehouses the spiritual well-being of so many entertainers?

If history is any indication, Americans are uncharacteristically slow to embrace the new, or unfamiliar, in theology. And we are uncomfortable with anyone we consider a religious extremist.

‘’For many, especially literal-minded Christians, there’s a tradition that Christianity ends with the New Testament,'’ says June-Ann Greeley, assistant professor of religious studies and director of the Center for Catholic Thought, Ethics and Culture at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn. ‘’The sense that there would be another revelation is very problematic.'’

Theoretically, the attacks of Sept. 11 were supposed to usher in a new era of religious understanding. In an effort to study the perversion of Islam that moved terrorists to attack, non-Muslims would teach themselves about the religion. In a 2002 Washington speech at the Afghanistan Embassy, President Bush said, ‘’All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true . . . face of Islam. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It’s a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It’s a faith based upon love, not hate.'’

But many people in the United States - which by many estimates is roughly 80 percent Christian - have not educated themselves about Islam, and the ignorance is telling.

Greeley, who teaches about the religion, says: ‘’We’re about 45 minutes outside of New York City. Many of our students either knew someone personally, or knew someone who knew someone, who died in 9/11. They come to classes in Islam any time a class is offered,'’ but not necessarily to learn.
‘’I don’t know if it is to welcome a new understanding of religion, but to find certain ways in which it’s really a wrong religion. That’s not all students, but there will always be that other group who find it an evil religion and take a class to prove that it is.'’

In such a class, she focuses on the Quran and waits for students to recognize the similarities between it and their own religious texts. ‘’What often will happen is students will say, ‘Gee, this sounds like something I read in the Old Testament,’ ‘’ Greeley says. ‘’It’s really not so different.'’

Gabriel Greenberg, co-author with Peter Gottschalk of Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy, says neither Muslims nor Mormons have been considered mainstream in America, even though they are among the fastest-growing religions in the country.

‘It almost takes an event that affects [their] lives'’ before Americans seek to educate themselves about different faiths, says Greenberg….

Continued at Daily Camera Online

Why Religious Freedom is a Fundamental Freedom and Universal Human Right:

Religious freedom is pivotal to a free society. Thomas Jefferson and America’s founders called it the “first freedom.” It is enshrined in the first clause of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. And it is first in another sense: freedom of thought, conscience and religion is the prerequisite for the exercise of all other basic human rights. In theory and practice, free expression, freedom of press and freedom of association depend on the prior guarantee of a free conscience. The historical reality is that where religious freedom is denied, so too are other basic human rights.

Continued at the Hudson Institute, Center for Religious Freedom

Report documents how extremists harness the power of the internet

Leo Adler of the Simon Wiesenthal Center tells one small city in Canada’s north that even they are not isolated from the epidemic of hate being generated by internet extremists….

Sudbury not immune from terrorism; One person can create a web of lies, Simon Wiesenthal researcher says

The Sudbury Star
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 09:00
Lara Bradley

Local News - Hate websites are becoming increasingly clever at luring in the young, angry or just plain curious, and we should all be vigilant, an expert says.

On the Internet, you can find games like Border Crossing in which the player shoots Mexican “wetbacks” - pregnant women with toddlers in tow as they scurry across the border.

Then there’s Ethnic Cleansing, where the player gets to custom-tailor the group he or she would like to hunt down; and Kaboom, in which the player gets to be a suicide bomber, earning points based on the size of the crowd taken out.

Leo Adler, director of national affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, presented its 10th annual report on Digital Terrorism and Hate for 2007 to Sudbury media on Monday.

“Sudbury may be small compared to other Canadian cities, but it is not isolated,” Adler said. “All it takes is to attract and recruit one individual. … Sudbury is no further immune than Toronto, New York City or any other place.”

The centre, a human rights organization dedicated to fostering ideas of tolerance and understanding, has been monitoring the Internet since 1995. Back then, there was only one hate crime site called Stormfront, a group promoting white supremacy.

“Hate on Demand chronicles what has taken place,” Adler said. “How extremist groups harness the power of the Internet.”

Now, countless terrorists groups - from the Baby Liberation Army, which targets medical staff who perform abortions, to religious extremists pumping up suicide bombers to hardcore environmental groups promoting violence to achieve their ends - use the World Wide Web to disseminate information to members, as well as market themselves to potential members.

“Things don’t happen spontaneously,” he said. “Terrorism is extremely well organized.”

continued at: The Sudbury Star