Texas Board of Education … be very afraid

YouTube video of an opening prayer at the Texas Board of Education meeting.

Article from the Texas Freedom Network.

misplaced

I’ve started writing this post at least a dozen times. The daily dose of information makes me dizzy. Now, I think my head will explode if I don’t get it out.

There are so many BIG issues surrounding both the planned Islamic Center in New York and the “suspended” Quran burning in Florida that it can seem overwhelming. One word I find myself using over and over again is misplaced.

Burning the Quran to send a message to respect our constitution is not only misplaced, it’s stupid. The potential danger to American troops is of course a concern, but it’s not the only concern we should have. We need to be totally outraged by the very suggestion of this act of aggression. It does NOT send the message that we “accept you as long as you respect our constitution.” It will NOT stop terrorists from doing anything they don’t already want to do. It will NOT make Muslim Americans feel that this is a welcoming place to practice their religion. It is completely disrespectful and goes against what we as Americans stand for. I could go on and on, but we’ve all heard these arguments. If only we could just ignore this guy and move on.

Some think the American government should move in and forcibly take control of the situation. Arrest Mr. Jones, do whatever it takes to stop him, because he’s a “threat to national security.” He’s a threat because we’ve spent so much time drawing attention to him. But he still has rights. We can’t squash people’s rights every time we are afraid or think something is too “radical.” Whose definition of what’s radical and dangerous are we going to use? This is a VERY slippery slope. It won’t be long before we or someone we know and love are on the losing side of that argument.

Opposition to the Islamic Center near ground zero is gravely misplaced. Blaming all of Islam on the acts of terrorist extremists is like judging all Christians on any of the completely insane things people have done in the name of Christianity. Remember David Koresh? I wouldn’t want people to assume that he represented Christianity’s main core.

Newt Gingrinch has made some comments about the Islamic Center are so off base they don’t even warrant a response. Moving on.

Donald Trump’s offer to buy the property from the Islamic group so they can move it at least 5 blocks away, totally misplaced as well. What’s the real difference between 3 blocks? Doing anything other than building that center right where it’s planned only teaches us that when we overreact to misplaced fears, it will be rewarded. It teaches us that we CAN deny other Americas their rights if we raise enough hell. Back to the slippery slope; it WILL bite us in the ass. America, we’ve been here done this, have the T-shirt too many times. Surely we don’t have to learn this lesson again?

So where do we put it? Where do we put all that misplaced fear, anger, blame? We want so desperately to find a place to set it down that we’re making some potentially big mistakes. We are letting that fear control us. We are forgetting who we are, what our nation stands for. But we can’t put it down just yet. Apparently we still have some things to learn from it. When we finally do feel we can let go of it, I bet we won’t even remember where we left it.