Muslims in the US

I was planning to (finally) update this blog with the Daily Caller's hilariously inept attempt to smear Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey (more on this soon - check back) or other news pieces. However, I found a blog entry that was so damn good that I couldn't pass up posting it here. It's a long read, but well worth the time.

Believe it or not, Muslim support for the Republican Party did not waver in the face of its gradual Christianization. On the contrary, Muslims saw common ground with Christians on most social issues. While the topic of abortion is not nearly as cut-and-dried for Muslims as it is for many Christians, the Muslim community certainly agreed with the goal of limiting them as much as possible – and more to the point, in limiting unwanted pregnancies in the first place by stigmatizing casual sexual encounters. Muslims shared with their Christian neighbors their belief in the sanctity of the nuclear family, and their belief that a household headed by a married mother and father was the best household in which to raise children.

By 2000, the Muslim community in America was several decades old, and had started to mature as a political entity. Muslim organizations almost unanimously endorsed George W. Bush. I voted for Bush that year. I would have voted for Bob Dole in 1996 if I weren’t so busy with medical school that I forgot to vote; I would have voted for Bush Sr. in 1992 if I weren’t still 17 years old.

In the 2000 election, approximately 70% of Muslims in America voted for Bush; among non-African-American Muslims, the ratio was over 80%.

Four years later, Bush’s share of the vote among Muslims was 4%.

What happened? Well, a lot.

The GOP and Me

The most shameful legacy of the 9/11 years is not torture, not Gitmo, not Abu Ghraib or even the Patriot Act. It's the irrational fear and hatred that the attacks have caused some in this country to harbor towards Muslim Americans: casting suspicion on Muslim Americans who want to build a mosque in their neighborhood, placing innocents on the 'do not fly' list, searching the private records or Muslims who were born and raised in this country but committed no crime - just happened to have a name that sounded "Arab".

9/11 should have been a chance for this country to show the world that we were better than those who attacked us. We don't allow the terrorists the privilege of seeing that their goal - to frighten us into submission - has worked.

But that's exactly what we did. The Patriot Act, torture, even the war in Iraq - those were not signs of strength, but the desperate acts of a people who were so scared that they were willing to go back on some of their most cherished beliefs for an illusion of security.

In that sense, Osama and his terrorist allies won the moment we allowed fear - and not rationality - rule the day.