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It's not just Darul Uloom in Woodlawn
At least the people in Frederick County are open about their anti-Muslim prejudice.
Early this week, WBAL Radio reported that the town of Walkersville in Frederick County is working on a zoning change that would prohibit the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community from building a mosque and conference center on farm land there.
A Google search revealed another story, which relates how yet another Muslim community experienced the same sort of treatment when they tried to buy land in Frederick County near Buckeyestown. This earlier incident happened back in 2000, even before the September 11th attacks poisoned American attitudes toward Islam.
But as I have observed in previous blog entries, the "concerned citizens" of Woodlawn lack the courage to admit that prejudice is at the root of the opposition to Darul Uloom, which has been aided and abetted by the efforts of Emmett Burns and Kenneth Oliver--both elected officials sworn to uphold the state constitution--to thwart the legal process.
Personally, I do not feel charitable towards any flavor of organized religion. All too often, religion is used as a cheesy method of coercing people, and all too frequently they are coerced out of their money. Within the past week, I have seen a friend's wife flee to North Carolina in a state of absolute angst over being maltreated by her fellow church parishoners. And in that same week, another friend--this one in the clergy--was arbitrarily dismissed by her congregation, leaving her potentially unable to support herself.
It seems to me that at the root of things, religion is about sex and death: rules about who gets to copulate with whom and under what circumstances, and cockamamie theories about what happens to us after our bodies die. Not to mention the dietary restrictions, which in all honesty remind me of the poutings of a three-year-old kid who does not want the spinach on his plate to touch the mashed potatoes. In the interest of brevity and decency, I will not reveal what I think about circumcision as a religious practice...
Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Mormon, Hindu, Pagan, whatever--I don't have much use for any of them. I cannot envision a Creator as childish and hostile as most religionists believe their deities to be.
But I do recognize people's freedom in the USA to be duped and deluded by the religion of their choice. And I recognize that religious tolerance was one of the important--if not THE most important--principles upon which the State of Maryland was incorporated, nearly 400 years ago.
Particularly where the fear of Islam is concerned, there is a danger. Too many people have said--or come dangerously close to saying--that they would have Islam made illegal, and wiped out from the USA. If that happens, everyone's freedom of religion (which is to say freedom of speech and assembly) will have been weakened.