There is still a dispute as to whether religious minorities in Iran will be forced to wear identification as such. If it turns out to be true I think I’ll print up some t-shirts with the same symbols for anyone who finds such Reich-like behavior as troubling as I do.
By the way, mine is not an anti-Muslim reaction. It’s an anti-fascist reaction. In 1968 my family hosted the first Muslim student ever to attend our city’s high school. We figured out the direction to Mecca for him. As a School Board member in Duluth I began saying “Allah” rather than “God” during our Pledge of Allegiance ceremonies after the invasion of Iraq. One of the few things I was grateful to President Bush for doing in the wake of 9/11 was urging Americans not to turn on America’s Muslims.
But I strongly believe in religious freedom and the separation of Church and State. I’m grateful that our nation was founded on Enlightment ideals and embedded them into the Bill of Rights.Â
In 1988 the Ayatollahs running Iran called for the assassination of author, Salman Rushdie. I was so incensed that I began a Quixotic mission to rally college students around America to protest. I might just as well tried to raise the ocean by spitting in it. Maybe I’ll write a column about that too some day.
If we don’t take a stand for religious liberty who will? The Dutch?
