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Pastimes : THE SLIGHTLY MODERATED BOXING RING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (14905)	6/15/2002 4:47:50 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 21057

I saw a editorial by John Gibson on Fox News the other night that I thought was interesting so I looked on their site for the text so I could post it. The search facility brought up the header, but the article wasn't available. I tried again later. And again. And was suspicious of why it was missing. Apparently there were some complaints about it and they took it down. Now it's back up with a follow-up by Gibson. Thought y'all might find it interesting. Here's the original followed by the follow-up. ----------------- Friday, June 14, 2002 By John Gibson As constant viewers know, I have been whacking around the Muslim extremists who think it's okay to incite young Muslim men into hateful rages against America that result in things like flying hijacked airliners into buildings. Nonetheless... that does not mean you and I should go around attacking Islam. It is the religion of a billion people around the world, and we believe here in the U.S. that people are free to believe as they choose. It's called religious freedom. Consequently, the comments of a Baptist minister at a Southern Baptist convention this weekend makes me cringe. Here's what the Rev. Jerry Vines had to say: "Christianity was founded by the virgin-born son of the lord god Jesus Christ. Islam was founded by Mohammed, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives, and the last one was a 9-year-old girl." Ouch. Those Muslim Americans who are asking for responses to statements like this are predictably horrified, as they should be. But it's the rest of us who really ought to be telling the reverend to put a cork in it. Saying things like this does not help. It's like that loony imam in Saudia Arabia who said that Jews need the blood of Arabs to make Purim pastries. It's not only stupid, but it flies around the world on Al Jazeera and reinstills the hate and the vitriol directed against us. Besides... the Baptists and any number of other religious sects and denominations should not be hollering about Mohammed's life a thousand years ago, when so many contemporary religious lives are requiring civil prosecution. I, for one, would appreciate it if the reverend stuck to condemnation of terrorists who say they follow Mohammed rather than trying to undermine the moral and religious leadership of a man who a billion people believe is the prophet. That's My Word. -------------- Friday, June 14, 2002 By John Gibson I think some viewers may have misinterpreted my criticism of the Baptist Rev. Jerry Vines. I don't pretend to know the truth about the prophet Mohammed. What Vines said I've heard before… and maybe it's just as he says. But I think peaceful Muslims would say, "If Mohammed was possessed by a demon, does that make him unqualified to pass the word of god to man? If Mohammed had 12 wives in a time and place where men did that, and if one of them was nine years old, does that disqualify him to hear god?" I don't know, and I'm not going to make that judgment... not because I'm trying to be P.C., but because I'm trying not to make judgments about someone else's religion. What I will make judgments about is someone else's actions, and that's what I wanted the Rev. Vines to do. Condemn the terrorists because they should know killing innocents is wrong, even if in some dusty passage of the Koran it says to kill the infidel. We require of modern people that they reinterpret ancient commandments to fit our times, and in our times killing innocents is wrong. But more than that, I wanted the reverend to consider the situation of people who live in the terrorists' line of fire. Al Qaeda's bulls-eye is not Jacksonville, Florida, where the reverend is from, or Beaverton, Oregon... The bulls-eye is New York or Washington, D.C. For those of us who live in and around those two bulls-eyes, we would like to beg the indulgence of our fellow citizens: Don't rattle the cage, please. We're already making war on the people who would carry out terrorist attacks. We are making some progress, I might add... and we here don't think it's such a great idea for you out there to turn even more Muslim men into active bombers by calling their prophet names that they find horribly offensive. If you don't mind, I don't need even one more crazed bomber. So that's the limit of my criticism of the reverend. I don't know whether he's right or wrong about Mohammed, but he's preaching to the already converted. The followers of the guy he's slamming are only going to get even angrier, so please. Give us bulls-eye people a break. That's My Word.