Editorial from Today's Post.
Defaming Islam
Sunday, October 6, 2002; Page B06
ONE OF THE high-water marks after Sept. 11 last year was President Bush's leadership in urging Americans not to condemn Islam because of the actions of extremists in the name of their faith. He set aside his war planning to visit the mosque at the Islamic Center of Washington, where he reminded the nation that "Islam is peace" and admonished Americans not to take out their anger on innocent American Arabs and Muslims. In an appearance before a joint session of Congress, Mr. Bush denounced the terrorists as traitors to their faith. The preachings of Osama bin Laden, he said, were a grotesque distortion of a great religion. And despite several highly publicized incidents of threats and lashing out at people thought to be Muslim, most Americans have heeded the president's message, resisting the ugly lure of religious intolerance and hate.
The same, however, cannot be said of some key leaders of the religious right in America who are counted among President Bush's closest political allies. And on their noxious mix of religious bigotry and anti-Muslim demagoguery, Mr. Bush's silence is deafening.
We have in mind several religious conservative leaders who count Mr. Bush as one of their own. There is the Rev. Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son and successor and a participant in the president's inauguration, who has declared Islam a "very evil and wicked religion." And there is Christian Coalition founder and television evangelist Pat Robertson, who said that "to think that [Islam] is a peaceful religion is fraudulent." Mr. Robertson, in full attack mode himself, called the prophet Muhammad "an absolute wild-eyed fanatic . . . a robber and brigand . . . a killer." And, in an appearance on the CBS program "60 Minutes" to be broadcast tonight, the Rev. Jerry Falwell completes the demonization of a religion by smearing the prophet of Islam as "a terrorist."
These are not just the words of a fringe movement. The speakers are leaders among the religious right in America, a movement close to a president who speaks their language. Their embrace is mutual. It therefore falls to the president to break his silence on their gross distortion and to put some distance between their rhetoric and his own professions of tolerance. To avert his gaze from their actions is to permit the Falwells, Robertsons and Grahams to legitimize their own perverse teachings through their association with the president of the United States. If their words are not his, then the president must say so.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company |
