The Ugly American Syndrome, Day 2: Religious Freedom, except for my religion!

http://minutemennews.com/2013/11/barack-obamas-dhs-advisor-mohamed-elibiary-america-islamic-country/

So a friend of mine on FB posted the above link the other day as part of my ongoing urge to disprove Interwebz Hoax, Pranks and Lies. (Yeah I know it is a wasted effort but everyone needs a hobby right?) I did research and found that the above individual did indeed post a Tweet that indicated that America was a Islamic Country following Islamic Values. I cannot speak to what the individual in question actually meant by his post, but I will point out that Twitter is a very bad place to get any in depth idea across because, lets face it, it is hard to get your point across in 256 characters or less. So the man may have been trying to speak of America's cultural and racial diversity or he may have indeed been indicating that Islamic Faith is conquering the US. I can't say one way or the other.

But that is not what this little rant is about. Nope not even close. This little rant is about all of the people out there who are...well ranting about Islam and Sharia Law or whatever the Hate Topic Du Sour Grapes is for the month. They rage on and on about Mosques being built in their neighborhoods or being forced to press #1 for English and fret themselves into conniption fits over the idea that evil forces are threatening the Merrican Way. You don't have to look far for them. Trust me when I say they are everywhere and will start protesting at the drop of a turban.

Now here is a very simple way to shut most of them up. As they go on and on about how wrong it is that Muslims are trying to “force” Americans to follow Sharia Law, tap them on the shoulder and tell them you agree 110%. Then say something along the lines of “And Gee, isn't it just as horrible that powerful figures in the US are trying to force the people of the US to obey laws based off of Christian Beliefs?” Trust me, that will shut them up for about 30 seconds as their brains reboot, then you will probably get a “Well, that is different!” or something like it.

See people seem to be under the mistaken impression that America is a Christian Nation based off of Christian tenets and commandments. They believe that it is all fine and dandy to base the Nations laws off the teachings of whatever version of the Holy Bible they like to not read. Well, here is a newsflash for a bunch of people. America is not nor has it ever been a Christian Nation. The US has not State Religion and our government was specifically set up to prevent laws and such being made specifically from Christian Tenets. In fact the only mentions of anything of a religious nature in the original documents are “Creator” in the Declaration of Independence (Not not God, Yahweh, Allah or any other specific religion.) and “in the year of our Lord” in the Constitution. (Arguable not even a direct reference to any sort of religion since this was a fairly common line for that time when speaking of the date.).

Still, we have people ranging from high ranking politicians down city councilmen insisting that America is a Christian State and that is perfectly alright to create laws based of of those believes even though such ideas directly contradict the whole idea of the US. They pass laws about abortion because it is supposedly against Christian Values to perform such acts. (Note that one is up in the air.) They push teaching Creationism (Intelligent Design) in Schools as long as the Creation Mythos being taught is the Christian one. They rage on and on when someone says a Prayer in School toward Allah, but are all happy eyes and smiles when a School Leader stands up and leads the School in a Christian Prayer.

Essentially So-called American Christians are completely and utterly opposed to any sort of religion being used to guide their country except when it is the Christian Religion then it is okay. They get peeved off when they are being “oppressed” but are fine and dandy with oppressing other faiths simply because they don't like them. I will leave you with a few examples how hypocritical this mind set is.

1. Bugshuck, AZ bans the building of a new Baptist Church because the Westboro Baptist Church shows that all Baptists are bigoted, inbred idiots who like waving badly spelled signs. (You can bet that Christians who happily oppose the building of new Mosques because all Muslims are terrorists or terrorist sympathizers would be outraged over this bigotry.)
2. A Group organizes a Zillion Person Walk to protest that under Sharia Law, women are treated as little more than slaves with no control over their lives or property. (Betcha these same people are all over laws that restrict birth control and abortions because women don't have the right to regulate their own bodies.)
   America has been from the day it was first imagined, a land of Freedom where each and every person has the right to believe the way they feel is right. Our nation was set up so that no one religion could dominate and control the fates of everyone. No matter what most extremists desire, we should never move away from that because nothing good can ever come of it. Course, in the end, this is just my opinion.
   End of Rant