On this day of sadness and remembrance, my love for America must supersede my admiration for political correctness.
The only way to properly honor those whose lives were taken on September 11, 2001, especially those who gave their lives to help others, is to accept the truth, even if it makes me uncomfortable. I consider myself to be an educated and tolerant person, but my friends, my family, trusted members of the media, religious leaders, they have all taught me how important it is to know the truth...to know what evil looks like, so that it can be stopped.
For some of you it will be hard to swallow, but the fact is that there is a group of people who think that under certain circumstances, it is actually heroic to kill an innocent person. Usually those circumstances are formed in their own heads, or by some ancient religious teaching. They believe God told them to kill, so they kill. They murder out of a love for God, as messed up as that sounds.
They keep pointing to the purity of their basic religious tenets. They argue that just because some people of their faith are violent, doesn't make it a violent religion, that modern times have created splinter groups, extremists, etc. But the truth is that even the original writings glorify, in several places, killing innocent people, war, the oppression of women, the abuse of children, and doing away with entire societies thought to be antagonistic to their faith -- infidels.
In these certain circumstances, they don't even consider killing to be wrong or evil. They think they are preventing evil by killing someone who might do evil. They claim their religion is one of peace and love, but in reality it is exclusionary and rooted in fear and violence.
They say they want to be part of everyday society, but on a regular basis they gather with their similarly closed-minded brethren and plot ways to recruit, convert, intimidate, and regulate the rest of us into thinking like they think, or else. They claim to be patriotic Americans, but they insist that theirs is the only religion that has any validity to it at all.
In some communities in which they are the majority, they have even warped and twisted the United States Constitution, which is supposed to be religiously objective and fair to all. They have used their political connections to pass laws that clearly favor their way of life. Some of these laws mandate government officials to let them lead their prayers at public events, or require all citizens to honor their holy books. As horrific as this sounds, they have even pushed for laws that allow parents to withhold lifesaving medical treatment for their children when they are ill. This goes way beyond the arena of religious freedom and into the arena of amorality -- evil.
I'm not advocating that they should be deported or harmed. I do believe in the United States Constitution, and that means they have the right to believe whatever they want to believe. We have to be understanding, and we should be accepting and tolerant -- more so than they are. We can get along with them.
But we should still be vigilant, always on the lookout for danger, whether that danger is in the form of one of them plotting to bomb a building, or plotting to pass a law infringing on our constitutionally protected rights.
These religious fundamentalists threaten our families and our way of life. Their violent history, their passionate hold on the notion that only they are right, their hypocritical professions of peace...on this anniversary of September 11, 2001, and on every other day, we cannot allow their threats to continue. They must be stopped. So, keep alert and be on the lookout for them.
They're called Christians.
