Acting Like Christians
by Paul R. Hollrah
May 13, 2007

 

If you’re as fed up as I am with all the petty little incidents that appear to offend Muslim religious sensibilities, then you’ll agree that it’s time we put a stop to it.

 

I mean, really!  Are the people who run the taxpayer supported Minneapolis Community and Technical College going to bow to Muslim demands and install ritual foot-washing facilities?  And if they do, are the people of Minnesota going to let them keep their jobs?  Better yet, are plans being made to strip them naked, tar and feather them, and parade them through the streets of Minneapolis in the dead of winter?  If not, why not?

 

It was at the Minneapolis airport several months ago that a group of six Imams attempted to stir controversy by purposely acting like a bunch of hijackers.  Other passengers became frightened and had them tossed off the US Airways flight.  Now they’re suing the airline and several of the passengers who complained.  Good luck!  And when I give the word, Imams, please take a deep breath and hold it! 

 

More recently, Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis airport refused to carry passengers who had alcoholic beverages or pork products in their possession.  Maybe its time we all carried a little Muslim-cab-driver-emergency-kit when we travel.  We could carry a few links of pork sausage and a couple of airline-size bottles of booze which we could leave behind on the rear seat as a little “gift,” in lieu of a tip.

 

Then we had the episode at a Minneapolis Target Store when a Muslim clerk refused to scan a package of bacon for a customer because Muslims consider pork meat to be “unclean.”  One liberal Democrat-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party member suggested that perhaps Target could have their Muslim clerks wear aprons saying, “I don’t handle pork products.  Please go to the next register.”  Sure!  Like I really need to shop at Target…

 

And in the most recent outrage, a middle school student in Lewiston, Maine has been suspended from school and faces “hate crime” charges after leaving a bag containing a ham sandwich on a table near some Muslim students.  According to reports, it reminded Muslims of an incident last year when a Lewiston man tossed a severed pig’s head into a local mosque.

 

One of the “traumatized” Somali students reportedly said, “That ham sandwich in a bag where we couldn't even see might as well have been that pig's head… ”

 

School Superintendent Leon Levesque, is reported to have said, “The school incident is being treated seriously as a hate incident.  We’ve got some work to do to turn this around and bring the school community back together again.” 

 

School officials even went so far as to report the incident to the Maine Attorney General to determine whether or not a “hate crime” had been committed.  It just goes to show what happens when parents spend a small fortune sending their kids to liberal arts colleges.  The kids never quite figure out what they want to be when they grow up so, like the school officials in Maine, they never get around to deciding on a discipline that might one day make them useful members of society. 

 

As a soldier, as a businessman, and as one who just likes to travel, I have visited at least twenty-seven countries.  And whether I’m traveling in Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Europe, or Asia, the one thing that I am always careful to do is to observe the local customs and traditions and adjust my behavior accordingly.  Having said that, I would suggest to our Muslim “guests” that they are welcome to visit here and to live here, but only if they adjust themselves to our customs and traditions.  If they can’t do that comfortably, they might want to find another place to hang their turbans.

 

The Roman Catholic Church has embarked on a program to win worldwide religious reciprocity with Islam because, in Islamic countries, Christians and Jews are prohibited from practicing their religion freely and openly.  Fair enough.  So I’ll pledge to accept their petty little demands on the same day that Christians, Jews, and everyone else are allowed complete religious freedom in all of the nations of the Islamic world… but not before.  Complete reciprocity is the standard that must be adopted by every Western nation… nothing more, nothing less.

 

I recall a line from comedian Mark Russell who entertained for many years at the Marquee Lounge in Washington’s Shoreham Hotel.  Russell was fond of telling the story about Richard Nixon sending Henry Kissinger to the Middle East to “make the Arabs and the Jews act like Christians.”  Well, that was a joke, but now it’s time that Muslims living in the West finally began to act like Christians.