What A Mormon Thinks About Muslims

I just saw an anti-Muslim photo showing Muslims praying with the caption, “Allah please help us kill the Jews and their supporters”. What is the point of this? At some point we have to stop being assholes to our neighbors. There are Two million Muslims living with us and they pose no threats, despite our right wing fringe who whips the uniformed into a frenzy with fear.

Muslims are our neighbors. This type of juvenile behavior needs to stop. It does not say, ‘I am a good Christian please sit at my table break bread with me”. It says, “Fuck you”. I don’t know about you but the last time someone treated me that way I was not very happy and I certainly did not feel welcome.

At some point each of us had to stand up and say enough, we have to say, ‘I am no longer going to speak ill of Muslims. I am going to live with my Muslim neighbors, as my Muslims neighbors, so they see and feel how wonderful our way of life is and that they desire to embrace it the way I have’.

I am going to smile and offer salutation to every Muslim I meet. I am going to encourage my friends to welcome them into their homes and lives. I am going to encourage them to stop spreading fear about Muslims. I am not going to hold every Muslim I meet accountable for the actions of al-Queda on 9/11.  al-Queda are the terrorist and they happen to be Muslim, just like all the Irish terrorist were Christians. Every terrorist has a religious connection. Of the 65 mass shootings in this country in the last 30 years more than 80% were done by Christians.

It was a mistake for the media and the politicians to link terrorism to Muslims and not directly to a fringe group of Muslims. It has damaged our relations with Muslims for more than a decade. It was bad propaganda. It is time to reject bad propaganda.

I am not going to be afraid of Muslims, because someone on the INTERNET told me to be afraid. I am not dumb. I knw the fringe are dangerous. I have had a man from Pakistan in London tell me he wanted to take me to his country and that he would take great pleasure in killing me. I have personal experience as a world traveler with the extreme fringe of the Muslim faith.

That does not change my determination to be apart the healing that needs to go forth between the our culture and theirs. I have worked with Muslims lived next door to Muslims, lived behind Mosques, and done business with Muslims.

I have spoke directly and plainly with Muslims about their views on the western societies and they have clearly told me time after time, they live here because they feel safe here why would they want to change anything. They talk about Islam being a faith of love and beauty. They talk of killing being totally against the will of God.

They are hostile towards homosexuals within their faith but have a live and let live outside their faith. They could improve. I hope that by my not fearing them and engaging them in my life that their views change.

We can’t keep harping on a few lines of text in their holy dogma anymore than we would the crazy dogma in our own holy books. At some point we have to say enough. Your my brother, your welcome here as you are.

We have to grow up, we have to own our bigotry. We have to be able to say, the hostile postings and hostile messages we write are only adding fuel to the fire. Each time we engage in anti-Muslim behavior in the name of free speech, it just pisses them off.

Look how angry we get if someone simply says, “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. Suddenly there is a war on Christmas and the media floods the airwaves and people buy buttons and bumper stickers proclaiming “Don’t take the Christ out of Christmas”.

Are we really surprised that burning Korans, protesting Mosque, and all the anti-Muslim propaganda causes riots in the Middle East?

I don’t want laws passed to make us each stop hatin on Muslims. I want us each to own it and stop it.

Just make a personal commitment to stop being asshole to Muslims, stop engaging and spreading anti-Muslim propaganda. Have respect for our neighbors. Treat them with the dignity our Christian grandparents taught us.

It is time we all grow up and treat Muslims as we want them to treat us.