Thursday, January 04, 2007
A dangerous political ideology?
From the RoundTable blog
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Beverly Schlegel
Schlegel, of Montvale, works in the hospitality industry.
In the last few days, Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Rocky Mount, has been subjected to an unfair and biased persecution, orchestrated by the extremist, Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations, for positions that he expressed in a recent letter to his constituents.
In this letter, Goode wrote with concern over Muslim immigration into the United States, and criticized the decision of Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, D-Minn., to use the Quran at his swearing-in ceremony. Goode has also received several threatening phone calls, according to the Franklin County sheriff -- simply for writing a letter to his constituents.
Enough is enough. I am writing to ask for your support for Goode. The symbolism of using the Quran at a ceremony where Ellison will swear to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States should raise questions about the obvious conflict of interest that Ellison must have in fulfilling such an oath. We need to stand firm against pressure from extremist Islamist advocacy groups, and from their appeasers in the media and in our Congress.
Rep. Goode of course supports the right of any American to practice his or her religion, no matter what it is. So do I. But he doesn't support the right to practice a dangerous political ideology, in the form of radical Islam, that is masquerading as a religion.
Radical Islam is a political ideology, like communism or fascism, that threatens most Muslims and all non-Muslims worldwide. People of all other religions, including freedom-loving Muslims and atheists, are in its gunsights. All races are its victims, and people all over the world are being blown up, beheaded, tortured and intimidated by those who act in the name of this bullying political ideology.
When Goode and our other elected representatives put their hands on the Bible to swear an oath, they are simply asking God to be their witness. They are not citing Christian or Jewish or other religious authority to justify or require any particular legislative action.
But a Muslim's holy book requires him to wage jihad and create certain political -- not religious -- institutions such as Sharia law, which are in direct opposition to American values and the American Constitution. The Quran, which to Muslims is the word of God, compels believers to install by any means the legal and political system of Sharia in all human societies. It regards the land as belonging only to Allah and commands believers to return it to the community of Islam from the occupying nonbelievers.
The literal application of teachings in the Quran would compel our society to live under these harsh strictures of Sharia law, the legal code prescribed by the Quran, which denies basic rights to women, prescribes death to Islam's apostates and forbids or subjugates other religions.
This political ideology of radical Islam is a clear and present danger in this country and throughout the civilized world. America's traditions of open-handedness and religious tolerance have been used against us. If we do not take a stance against this political ideology, and its apologists like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, someday the tradition of American tolerance will no longer exist.
For this reason I ask you to support Goode in his concern that the Quran demands loyalties that directly counter our constitutional liberties. I ask that you call on all Muslims in America to repudiate publicly the Islamic scriptures and traditions that sanction conquest by violence, oppression and religious intolerance.
We live in a dangerous world, one in which deceit and disinformation are being used against us by an implacable enemy. Self-appointed spokesmen such as CAIR pretend to represent Muslim Americans but in fact represent nothing more than the interests of their fundamentalist millionaire backers.
It is no longer enough to take their word that they and their co-religionists mean the rest of us no harm. It is both reasonable and prudent to ask Muslims to demonstrate by both word and deed that they support the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, even if it disagrees with their religion's instructions -- especially if it disagrees with their religion's instructions.
This is the line we are drawing. We need to know who is standing on our side of the line. I welcome you, and people of all religions, including Islam, to stand with me.
