Today\’s paragraph comes to us from Media Research Center\’s Brent Bozell and Tim Graham, whose latest column is about Katie Couric\’s ongoing crusade to mainstream Muslims in the United States. To this end, Couric, who now toils for yahoo.com, hosted two Muslim comedians, Maysoon Zayid and Dean Obeidallah, and talked to them about how, possibly, sit-coms and “bachelor/bachelorette” shows featuring Muslims might contribute to more tolerance.
Let me stop here and point out that the general point Couric makes – that Muslims should be treated as any other citizens – is a perfectly valid one. As I have blogged numerous times, I have known, been friendly with and worked with Muslim people for many year. Including right now. And the Muslim people I have come in contact with are no better or worse than any people from any other group.
Are there Muslims who don\’t assimilate, who wish ill to the USA, who are willing engage in terrorism to that end? Yes there are.
But this does not define all Muslims any more than a Christian who bombs abortion clinics, or a White Christian who prays for an hour in a Black church, then kills 9 of the congregants who welcomed him there, defines all Christianity or all Whites.
The tone of Mr. Bozell and Mr. Graham\’s piece does not reflect this understanding. And in that regard, they are dead wrong.
But here is where they are right:
Americans are endlessly lectured that we don\’t appreciate that Muslims are just like us and that this “Islamophobia” is much like racism, a blight on what it means to be American. This pose against “ignorance” is never applied to other faiths, especially in the way the Left in this country radiates bigotry toward Christianity. Couric\’s industry, both news and entertainment, has spent decades attacking, insulting, and blaspheming Christianity. It would be hard to offset this bigotry with the Couric Sit-Com Solution when so many of them have anti-Christian bigotry as their driving impulse.
Yes. That is very often correct. There are media people – a good number of them – who ongoingly declare open season on people of the Christian faith…while simultaneously demanding acceptance and tolerance of Muslims, on the grounds that they are just like everyone else.
Understand, please, that, from a purely personal perspective – as neither a Muslim nor a Christian – I have no horse in this race. But what I do have, or at least try to have, is a sense of fairness about the same rules applying to everyone…the way so many in mainstream media address Christianity today. It is a double standard. It is hypocritical. It is an outrage.
Why is it unreasonable to expect, to demand, that one set of rules apply to everyone?
Bozell and Graham win Paragraph Of The Day honors for pointing out the unfair way much of the media treat Christians. I only wish they were equally concerned about the many, many Muslims who deserve no less.
