Loving Thy Enemy

"I love Muslims,” says Pam Geller, a notorious right-wing blogger, “but the Ground Zero mosque is an offensive insult and a stab in the eye.”

That’s curious. Glenn Beck, who most likely also loves Muslims, has called the mosque proposal a “slap in the face.”

Which is it?

Beck even said, “Any attempt to describe it as something other than a slap in the face is another slap in the face.”

Did you see that? Pam Gellar slapped Glenn Beck in the face! And all of America, too!

The blasted thing hasn’t even been built yet, and we already look like we’re married to Mel Gibson.

But we still love those Muslims, gosh-darn it! Love them right to death!

A lot of conservatives will twist themselves into knots trying to show that they’re not bigoted. In fact, a simple analysis of recent news shows that they simply don’t know what bigotry is.

Try this thought experiment: Suppose you have a jerk for a neighbor. He plays loud music at all hours, lets his dog poop on your lawn, sets fire to your car, whatever. He also happens to be Mormon.

Fortunately for you, the man’s job gets transferred, and he has to move out of state. But you learn that the person who wants to buy his house, coincidentally, is also Mormon. What is your reaction?

Well, if you’ve got any brains in your head, you know there are lots of Mormons in the world, and most of them are not feces-distributing arsonists. So you shrug it off and hope for the best.

If you don’t apply the same standard to Muslims, and instead trump up reasons to treat them differently, you are a bigot.

Witness Beck, who claimed on his August 4 show that Islam is a religion that “is saying we should blow people up.”

Glenn, buddy: Roughly 1.2 billion people (roughly ¼ of the world population) follow Islam. If even half of them were terrorists, or America-hating terrorist sympathizers, all corners of the globe would have seen an apocalyptic bloodbath long before now.

Or, Witness Gellar, who started the American Freedom Defense Initiative (interesting name, I thought that’s what the military was for):

“There is an Islamic history of building triumphant mosques on conquered lands…. We know the imam in charge of this has been dishonest about the funding. He's tied to terrorism." 

That analysis would make sense, except that a blind baboon could find the holes in it:

1. We have not actually been conquered.  The stated aim of al-Qaida and the 9/11 hijackers was to destroy our way of life.  Though our economy has stumbled a little of late, you can still get 118 different varieties of barbecue sauce at the grocery store, see plenty of porn for free on the Internet, and sue the government for not respecting your Satanist rituals during your incarceration. Way to not even come close to accomplishing your mission, Mr. bin Laden.

2. To say the people behind this mosque are “tied to terrorism” is pretty vague and misleading.  You could use the same logic to argue that the members of your local Catholic parish are “tied to child molestation.”

If you’re truly not a bigot, your attitude should be: Let them build a mosque 2 blocks from Ground Zero. So what? It doesn’t prove anything, other than that we are still the greatest and most tolerant nation in the history of the Earth.

 

 

Chuck McKay is a Maine freelance writer, teacher, and a Threat to Our Cherished Way of Life. Email him at chuckrates@gmail.com.

Food of the God(s)

As brown, curled-up leaves decompose in the frosty November dawn, one amazing burst of life and flavor carries my otherwise depressed spirit into the Holiday Season.

Wait... should I say “Holiday Season?” Some people might think I'm anti-Christian because I did not mention Christmas by name.

(I realize this same logic would mean that when I tell people I like gourds, I'm also saying I hate pumpkins. But I must account for the fact that not everyone can enjoy the benefits of logical thinking).

Okay. As I was saying. The one thing that helps me get to Christmastime is... No, that won't work, either. I can see the angry Hebrew emails popping into my inbox now. And if any native Africans lived in Maine, I might hear about Kwanzaa, too.

And rightly so. Why must inclusiveness be a sin? Can't we use language that encourages recognition and celebration of everyone's religious traditions, without undermining any one set of beliefs?

Right. So the one thing that really helps me keep going into the holiday season is...

Uh-oh... Here come the Pagans, who want me to mention the Winter Solstice. Is that a “holiday?” I don't know much about Wicca and such, but the stereotypes make me nervous (stereotypes always have some truth to them, right?).

So how about this: There is one thing that carries me me into December, a month in which many people in the world engage in festive recognition of spirituality through intense gluttonous feasting that gives them the same physical properties as a bowling ball for several weeks.

That one thing is: the arrival of pomegranates at my local grocery store.

(That's right! This column was supposed to be about pomegranates.)

In case you're unfamiliar, a pomegranate looks like a dirty red croquet ball with a giant nipple. You cut it open and eat the seeds, which are unbelievably juicy and sweet. In fact, each seed contains about 40 ounces of juice that will squirt directly onto your clothes, no matter how careful you are.

You can separate the seeds from the fruit much more easily if you hold the thing under water after cutting it up.

Though pomegranates grow in warm climates all over the world, they are native to Iran, and are widely used in a variety of Persian cuisine, which means I've just spent the last three paragraphs subversively trying to convert you to Islam.

Did it work? Happy Eid Al-Adha!

Believe me, after eating a pomegranate, you would willingly convert to anything in order to get more pomegranates. They are profoundly delicious. They also contain anti-oxidants, which supposedly fight cancer. They are truly food of the gods.

I mean that in a strictly colloquial, non-polytheistic sense. Please, no monotheistic hate mail.

You know what? From now on, I'm going to mention atheist holidays only. You might have noticed that atheists have no holidays, only because atheism is impossible to commercialize.

Who would buy gifts to observe the pure nothingness that would follow our meaningless biological exercise?

Try finding that aisle at Wal-Mart.

If Seinfeld could make a TV show out of nothing, I can make a column out of nothing. I'm sure you'll let me know how it works out.