Cal Thomas is absolutely correct when he says the Quran has extremist passages
and followers who act upon those passages. He conveniently ignores that his
Bible also has such passages and also has such extremist followers. The only
difference is that we have reduced extremist access to the power of government.
But maybe not for long.
In Israel, Orthodox Jews control what you can eat, when you can work and who
you can marry. Israel is the only country in the world where a Jew cannot marry
who they want and have the ceremony performed by the clergyman of their choice.
In New York, they bullied the legislature and two governors into setting up a
special public school district that would serve only Orthodox Jews. It was
ruled unconstitutional. In Broward County, the 99 percent of us who are not
kosher are taxed to pay for the government's kosher inspectors.
In the world of Protestantism, extremists accurately quote Scripture to defend
slavery and segregation. Jerry Falwell's proclamation that the World Trade
Center bombing was God's retribution was up there with presidential candidate
Pat Robertson's prayer session that supposedly changed the course of a
hurricane (it went up the coast and hit another location that must have been
filled with atheists).
It would all be funny if these people were not trying to take over government.
Their goal includes changing school curricula so that all science is revised to
conform to their absurd belief that the world is 6,000 years old. If their
political agenda succeeds, you can kiss freedom goodbye.
As the largest centralized religion in the world, the history of Roman Catholic
Church's lust for power and intolerance is legion. While the current pope went
on an apology jag for things like the Crusades, he has not even hinted that
those who committed these acts in the name of the church should lose their
titles as saints. In the name of family values, the Catholic Church attempts to
get the Florida Legislature to rewrite the divorce laws closer to the Roman
view.
Cal Thomas would have us believe only Islam is different and dangerous. The
truth is that all religions have dogma and followers that are dangerous to
freedom.
Religious extremism is on the rise in America. In the name of political
correctness we have confused respecting the right to a religious belief with
honoring all religious beliefs no matter how wacky or dangerous they are. In
the final analysis all religious extremists have no problem with religion
taking over civil society -- as long as it's their religion.
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