Rod Dreher's Terrifying Adventure

More on Separationism

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At the Dallas Morning News the other day, our editorial board received a delegation from the local Muslim community. They came in large part to complain about editorial coverage of the community, which is to say they came mostly to complain about me. Which is fine: they accurately recognize that I don't believe their claims that they are completely innocent of radicalism, and are wholly victims of irrational fear of Muslims. Once again, I came away from a meeting with them even more convinced of my views in this regard. I recorded the entire meeting, and hope to have the time in the next week or so to post lengthy excerpts. In summation, though, the group was defensive, evasive, and wouldn't give a straight answer to simple questions.

I asked the delegation's leader to clarify something he'd said to me and some colleagues last time we met, about his belief that homosexuals should be killed, adulterous women stoned, etc. He launched an elaborate defense of this position, saying that Judaism and Christianity are against homosexuality. (Emphasis ours.) Yes, I said, but they don't require that gays be killed for being gay. Do you believe that they should? An imam jumped in to explain why the sharia is right to require hand-chopping of thieves. Later, the delegation's leader said that if I'm asking him to apologize for what his religion requires, he's not going to do it.

Trying to get at the heart of the matter, I asked if they thought sharia should be the law of the land in our secular pluralistic democracy. Another round of long-winded answers, amounting to, "It would never happen here." That's not what I'm asking, I said; should it happen here. Someone explained that Muslim community would never be big enough in this country to make that happen. Which is, of course, entirely beside the point, but we moved on. I had my answer.

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I don't want to think ill of the Muslim community in Dallas, or anywhere. But like I said, wanting to believe something does not make it true. Oh, and it was instructive to hear from this group that the adulteresses in the Prophet's time asked to be stoned to death. The Prophet was apparently doing them a favor. Wonderful.

What I keep seeing from these meetings is an attempt -- a sincere attempt -- to mau-mau the media into ignoring disturbing things going on in the American Muslim community. By all means we should cover the good stuff. The group the other day kept making the point, "You focus on the few bad things, and ignore all the good things." But charitable works don't somehow make it okay to include hate literature against Christians and Jews in your mosque, and certainly don't make it un-newsworthy. Being kind to others doesn't obviate concerns over what kind of fanatical jihad literature you're teaching to your teenagers. I do believe that most of the American media are unwilling to give this kind of thing the scrutiny it deserves. I'm pleased that my editorial board does not give them a free pass, and is not willing to turn a blind eye to this sort of thing -- even though it does cast into doubt the idea that Islam can be assimilated into American life.

It would help the case made by men and women like those of the delegation if instead of engaging in denial and trying to make journalists feel like heels for even raising questions, they would deal with them straight on. But to do that, I suspect, would amount to conceding that Islam, as they understand it, is incommensurate with basic American values.

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"[W]anting to believe something does not make it true."

It certainly does not, and there comes a point where continuing to believe it borders on the fatuous, if not sheer childishness: It's much easier to go through life believing that everyone would get along if we'd just all mindlessly repeat multicultural pieties.

It's almost funny that those whose greatest fear is that somewhere a Christian is voting are so unaware of the true threat of a "theocracy" metastasizing in their midsts.

Life under a pluralistic representative republic where people of faith have the audacity to participate in civic life will look like the good old days when and if the Sharia is imposed.