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Wednesday, November 08, 2006
My letter in the St. Petersburg Times
After some back-and-forth with the Hernando editors of the St. Pete Times my letter was published today, the day after the election with the blaring frontpage headline "Crist Crusies." Anyway, I'll give a little bit of background on the story that prompted my letter and then let my comments speak for themselves.
On November 1 the Times published a story about comments made by Mary Ann Hogan, the wife of Henando commissioner Tom Hogan, Sr. Essentially, she was upset that public funds were used help a mosque celebrate the Muslim holiday Eid-al-Fitr at a county park. You can read the whole news story here.
To summarize, here are the relevant passages from the story, comments that Mrs. Hogan and her husband made that upset so many people:
“Overall, worldwide, it certainly is,” said Commissioner Tom Hogan Sr. “Don’t you read your own paper?” He went on to say, “There’s a saying out there, and there’s some truth to it, that not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. It’s their thing.”
“They can call it whatever they want to,” Mary Ann Hogan responded Tuesday. “I’m calling them barbarians. ”
“Don’t the administrators of this county know that in honor of Ramadan the Muslims in Iraq have killed an even greater number of our soldiers and Marines than in the preceding months?” she wrote.
“The stated goal of the Muslim faith is to kill us, the 'infidels.’ By providing county employees for their use Hernando County is sanctioning this hateful, frightening religion.”
“Illegal is bad enough,” she wrote, “but helping to promote the Muslim religion is immoral and un-American.”
Mary Ann Hogan responded in a telephone interview Tuesday morning. “Even if they have gotten citizenship, they are not true Americans in my opinion. They all want to kill us,” she said.
She said political correctness keeps many from speaking out. “These people are trying to kill us. They want to kill us. Why can’t you understand that? They say that. It’s written in their bible,” she said.
She said moderate Muslims haven’t done enough to condemn and stop terrorists. “I don’t want to sound like a raving maniac, but I think some raving is in order,” she said.
First of all, one thing that I don't agree with is that all Muslims are terrorists. This clearly isn't the case. Also, I disagree with bringing in the whole "un-American" rhetoric that conservatives love to throw around. The War on Terror and the problem of religious fanaticism transcends anything having to do with being American, un-American, Iraqi, Middle Eastern, Arab, whatever. It has to do with dogmatically adhereing to the principles of Islam as presented in the Koran.
Here is the full text of my letter as it appeared on TampaBay.com (the newspaper's website) and in today's Hernando County edition of the St. Petersburg Times.
Faith is a motive for terrorism
I am saddened, but not surprised, that Mary Ann Hogan’s comments about the Islamic faith have left the Hernando community “aghast” and resulted in calls for the resignation of her husband, Commissioner Tom Hogan Sr. While indeed inflammatory to moderate Muslims and Christians, they have not said anything that is inconsistent with Islam as it is presented in the Koran.
We live in a society that happily picks and chooses our Christian or Muslim values, ignoring or downplaying the hatred, judgment and violence that permeate the holy books of these two religions. Although I depart from Tom Hogan in his statement that “all terrorists are Muslims,” I challenge the offended segment of the Hernando community to find an alternative motive for major terrorist attacks against America. Overwhelmingly, the base motive is religion, and until we as a society recognize this and are willing to criticize the irrationality of faith, we will continue to validate fundamentalism throughout the world.
- William Klinger, Tampa
Click here to view a PDF scan of the front page and my letter.
Posted by Will at November 8, 2006 02:12 PM in In the News