Rancor surrounding the proposed Park51 community center in New York City is a painful indication of how little progress America has made in healing the national wound created on Sept. 11, 2001.
Immediately following these attacks, many of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims castigated the terrorists responsible. However, nearly a decade later, not only are many Americans unable or unwilling to recall this, but according to a recent Pew study, a growing number of U.S. citizens now believe — erroneously and prejudicially — that President Obama is himself a Muslim. More harmful than the ignorance behind these mistaken beliefs is that they curtail the ability of faith communities to offer much-needed guidance and healing.
I recently moved to New York but consider myself an Oklahoman. In fact, I have family members who were wounded, and friends killed, in the 1995 bombings of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. So I know first-hand that when a community is torn apart by catastrophic violence, it is natural to hunker down and to turn away from whatever is perceived as different or threatening. It is even worse when violence appears tied to religion. But this response, when it leads to open attacks on our national ideals of freedom of religion, is not justified no matter how much we might understand the fear that can motivate it. This is as true for downtown Oklahoma City as it is for downtown New York City.
Read the rest of this article at
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-09-01-jones03_ST_N.htm