Why is is bad to be a Muslim?

The other day I was visiting with a patient. I really enjoy my meetings with this older gentleman. He has had an interesting life and has some fascinating opinions. Though he is educated remnants of racism and prejudice exist, he even admits to this characteristic. He was convinced that the only way presidential hopeful Barack Obama could have ever attended elementary school in Indonesia was if he was a Muslim. Clearly he watches/reads/listens to too much Fox News but it finally made me write something on this subject that has bothered me for sometime.

A few weeks ago presidential hopeful John McCain was at a rally when a woman made a comment that Obama was a Muslim. McCain did the right thing and took away the microphone from this nutjob and corrected her by saying something like, “No, you’re wrong. He is a decent man and a good family man with whom we have political disagreements.” Incredibly McCain’s own people booed him for defending Obama.

But here is my question, McCain’s defense as well as the comment by my patient the other day implies that Muslims cannot be good parents, is this really the case? I don’t know a lot of Muslims but the ones I do seem like good and decent people to me. Perhaps I sympathize with the Muslim faith because I also belong to a misunderstood faith. In fact, my church was so misunderstood and frustrated that my ancestors literally fled the USA for good old Mexico and it would be nearly a hundred years before we were treated with adequate respect. The most important comparison; my religion also begins with the letter “M” and is six letters long. Regardless, I really think Muslims are getting a bad rap.

Fortunately I am not alone. Take for example the recent humbling remarks by universally respected retired Four-Star General Collin Powell. About a week ago on the TV news show “Meet the Press” he shared the following comments:

"I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, 'Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim; he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, 'what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?' The answer's 'no,' that's not America."

"Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America."

"I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards -- Purple Heart, Bronze Star -- showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross; it didn't have the Star of David; it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life."

Currently there is only one Muslim in the US Congress, Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota. He took the oath of office by putting his hand on a Koran owned by Thomas Jefferson. Sadly, CNN commentator Glen Beck, a member of my own faith, looked Mr. Ellison in the eyes and said, "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." However, if we want to reach out to members of this misunderstood faith and gain a better reputation in parts of the world that absolutely hate us maybe we need more Muslim-Americans running for Congress. After all, LDS politicians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century built bridges that made Mormons acceptable today, but there was a time when we were considered by many as Public Enemy #1.

So, even though Obama is not a Muslim, would it really matter if he was?