I've often commented that living in Murfreesboro through this whole mosque crisis has felt like living in Nazi German prior to World War II, or watching the American Civil Rights movement back in the 1950s and 1960s. The only good thing that comes from these realizations is another realization: neither group of bigots stopped the world from moving on. Granted, they caused a great amount of death and strife before they were finished, but in the end they were finished. Other than a few blow-hard stragglers that most people don't take seriously, or are looked down on and opposed by those who do take them seriously, both the Nazis and the KKK are considered movements of the past, when people didn't think as much as they do now. Now if the stragglers would just figure out that they are wrong, life would be much better.
Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks that way, and I'd like to quote a really wonderful article by Gail Kerr as published in the Tennessean Newspaper:
Burning at Murfreesboro mosque site will be motivator for truth
It didn't work then. And it won't work now.
The coward or cowards who set fire to construction equipment at an Islamic mosque construction site in Murfreesboro over the weekend are just like the racists who dynamited the home of the late Z. Alexander Looby.Looby was an African-American attorney who filed the lawsuit to desegregate Nashville's public school system. He also represented the students who were arrested after the downtown lunch counter sit-ins.
As a result, segregationists threw a bomb through the window of his home just off Jefferson Street on the morning of April 19, 1960. No one was home, thank God. But instead of intimidating civil rights activists, it motivated them. More than 3,000 people marched to the Nashville courthouse and confronted Mayor Ben West, who agreed on the spot to end segregation at the lunch counters.
I believe a similar thing will happen now.
When you shine the light of truth and logic on nut jobs who torch stuff under cover of darkness, they are shown to be what they are: Scurrying cockroaches.The mosque site arsonists join the 1960 bombers and the KKK hiding behind white sheets: They never let facts get in the way of their own stupidity.
And here is the main fact: All Muslims are not terrorists. All terrorists are not Muslim.
To believe anything else is a demonstration of utter ignorance at best, and the worst sort of xenophobia at worst.
Are all African-Americans members of gangs? That's utterly absurd. Does every immigrant come to America intent on robbing and killing? Of course not. Do all persons who label themselves Christians live a Christ-like life? No way. Witness how some "Christians" have reacted to construction of this mosque.
This ongoing nonsense is fed by anonymous fools on the Internet and talk radio that makes a profit feeding on the worst in people.
I'll never understand why some people are so obnoxiously afraid of anyone who looks, talks or believes differently than they do. The growing Muslim community simply wants a place to pray, congregate and learn.
Just like the Protestant church I attend.
The national headlines were cringe-worthy: A mosque construction site got torched in the buckle of the Bible belt.
I hope they catch the arsonists. I hope they spend many long nights locked in a miserably uncomfortable jail cell.
Most of all, I hope that thinking people — including those who seek our votes, and those who preach from our pulpits — will be inspired by what happened to stand up and fearlessly speak the truth. Because enough is enough.
People who worship and believe differently than you or I do deserve respect. Not hatred.
A crowd gathered Monday night in Rutherford County, lighting candles to show support of their Muslim neighbors.
The candles burned far brighter than an arsonist's torch ever will.
