Confronting Intolerance against Muslims in Politics.
Posted by John on October 22nd, 2008 at 7:11 am · 4 Comments
Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama was important, but perhaps not as significant as his defense of American Muslims.
This is where I break with the more dogmatic of my atheist sistren and brethren. While I believe that institutional religion is a net negative in its impact on society, religious labels shouldn’t be used as slurs and epithets. Doing so demonstrates a lack of nuanced understanding or at least a willful ignorance of the spectrum of religious belief and reinforces the worst stereotypes. “Muslim” should be no less a curse word than “Baptist” or “atheist.” I’m glad that some people are standing up to the small-mindedness encouraged in the current political climate, as in this video of a confrontation between a man selling bumper stickers (that imply that Obama is a Muslim and a Communist) and some Muslim McCain supporters. [Update: I got rid of the embedded video because it kept playing automatically when the page loaded.]
Tags: Atheism · Islam · Politics · Religion
