Wrong! We are not defending Islam, we are defending the Constitution, specifically the First Amendment guarantee of Religious Liberty. I could give a damn about Islam and quite frankly I have stated on several posts my distain for Islamic teachings. Neverthless, the First Amendment guarantees people the right to be wrong and the right to espouse teachings that Americans in general might find both offensive and intolerable. At least one poster on this thread made the suggestion that the Constitution was not designed to protect the rights of non-Judeo Christian religions.
If we expect Muslims to tolerate the rights of Christians in countries in which they are the majority, then we cannot advocate that this country, in which the Muslims are the minority must be the target of religious intolerance, even if the Islamic religion itself is intolerant.
The first amendment does not state that only those religions which were prominent in the United States in 1789 will be "tolerated". If that were the case, then Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and nearly all non-denominational Christian Churches would be given second class status under the First Amendment. The Founders were well aware of the dangers of Islamic teachings, yet they did not take their fear to the point where they made an exception to the First Amendment for Islam. They espoused the principle that in order to be a truly free people, we must be willing to tolerate some ideas and beliefs that run counter to what we as Americans believe and what we as Americans stand for.
We do not need to become like the Muslims in order to keep our Republic. They can believe in their idea of an American Islamic Utopia and I am not threatened by that belief as I have faith that Americans will reject such a concept outright and they don't need any help from THE STATE to accomplish that rejection. Our Republic is not in danger from the Muslims. It is in danger from do-gooder Statists who want to use the power of Government to turn this nation into a Socialist Utopia. Right now nearly 50% of Americans are on the verge of buying into that notion and yet we have Freepers advocating that the Nanny State protect us from the ideas of Muslims, who make up less than 1% of the population of this country and of those I suspect that only about 1% want to see it turned into the Islamic Paradise that you guys are all panicking about to the point where you are willing to toss the First Amendment under the bus and give the State the power to determine which religions are going to be protected by the First Amendment and which are not.
If I haven't made myself clear, let me know and I'll be more than happy to post another dissertation.
You cannot refute anything I posted about Islam, can you.
Islam does not recognize YOUR constitution, nor does it recognize YOUR laws.
It only recognizes its own.
IF you are going to claim Islam is a religion, which it is not, and allow it under ‘freedom of religion’, then you have to allow for their beliefs and practices.
So you are going on the record here saying that you are okay with Muslims owning slaves, raping women, commiting murder of Christians, etc etc?
That IS what you are saying by the way.
That's great Lady! What religion are you defending?
We're trying to stop a theocracy from getting a bigger foothold in the US like it has in europe.
I will side with Marlowe on this one with some holdbacks.
First, we must not violate the free expression clause for one, because someone will find a reason to violate it against me. Once you’ve made and opening, you’ve made an opening.
Holdback #1 - This must not be connected to profiling terrorists. Profiling is a legitimate means of determining security risks for everything from airplane flights to top secret clearances. Just because Abdul gets to pray on his rug does not mean I am not allowed to investigate Abdul for Jihadist ties.
Holdback #2 - Free expression must not be connected to subversion of law due to any Islamic religious desire to institute Sharia law in local or regional communities, nor should it be connected to any subversion to replace our form of government with any type of caliphate or anything else.