Is religion naturally intolerant?

The Park51 project has brought many ugly things to the surface. One of the astounding rumors that we’ve continually had to put down here at TC are the ones about President Obama and his Muslim and Kenyan roots that some extremists have been using to whip up xenophobia. Just because we don’t consider him to be an effective president doesn’t mean we support right wing memes about him that play into xenophobia and religious and ethnic bigotry. Playing into those fears is the Rev. Franklin Graham. While some religious leaders work towards interfaith understanding, others fan the flame of we’re right and every one else is apostate.

This leads me to continue my assumption that most forms of religion are–by human design–intolerant.

Here’s Graham fanning the falsehood about Obama’s faith.

The Rev. Franklin Graham on Friday said that President Barack Obama was “born a Muslim” because the religion’s “seed” is passed from the father.

Graham made the remark during an interview with CNN’s John King set to air Friday night after being asked about a new Pew poll showing that 31 percent of Republicans believe the president — a Christian — is Muslim.

Asked by King if he, too, has doubts about the president’s faith, Graham said that Obama’s “problem is he was born a Muslim.”

“The seed is passed through the father,” Graham said. “He was born a Muslim. His father was a Muslim; the seed of Muslim is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim; his father gave him an Islamic name.”

Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham, acknowledged that Obama has said he is a Christian.

Obama says he’s a Christian, why not just leave it at that? This stupidity has even led to a circus of comments that suggest the president needs to go to church more often to prove it. This is ridiculous. Public displays of religion don’t actually demonstrate how seriously one takes their faith. Turning religion into a political strategy is something that has always been anathema to me. Not only because the Jesus created in the new testament preaches against it (Examples from Matthew: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites [are]: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen [do]: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking”. ), but because it goes against the secular nature of our government as set up in The Constitution

Here are the voices of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows who support Religious Freedom.

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows applauds President Barack Obama for his statement in support of the building of a mosque near Ground Zero. On that day, members of our organization paid the ultimate price. We lost loved ones in the tragic attacks, attacks perpetrated by criminals. Our losses will never be redeemed; our wounds will never fully heal. On 9/11/2001 while many of us buried our loved ones we also took heart in our nation’s principles and our rule of law. Ours is a nation that fights for religious freedom. Many of us who call ourselves Americans do so because we came to escape religious persecution in other lands.

We applaud President Obama for his leadership on this issue. Simply put:
we lost our family members on 9/11/2001, but will not lose our nation, too. America, the concept and the people and the land thrive when we chose to trust in our principles rather than cave to our basest fears.

What better place for healing, reconciliation and understanding than Ground Zero? We honor our family members by practicing American principles and moving forward from Ground Zero to a future of peaceful coexist

I am no fan of institutionalized religion as you well know. I am, however, a huge fan of the constitutional right to practice one’s religion and to be religious without public harassment. I don’t care if it’s the president or the guy on the corner. All this right wing religious fanaticism on what is and what isn’t acceptable is just pure xenophobia and based on religious intolerance. It’s not pretty and it’s not an American Value. Here’s a good article in Time on the number of U.S. religious leaders that support the Park51 project.

Is this the man you want to listen to?

or how about this?

There are many things that form a reasoned basis to for criticism of President Obama. There are many things that form a reasoned basis to criticize policies and human rights violations by countries like Saudi Arabia and revolutionary terrorist groups like the Taliban. Why ignite the fires of religious and ethnic bigotry? The President is not a Muslim and he was born in Hawaii. Franklin Graham and his seed story should be relegated to a nonpublic place.

Get on with discussing some real issues. Constitutional rights are not negotiable.