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To the editor:
The increasingly ugly tenor and tone of anti-Muslim sentiments, including overt acts of violence and vandalism, currently sweeping the nation should sadden and frighten all Americans who still believe in the values and principles upon which this country was founded.
No value or principle is more threatened in this environment than the one that is the very cornerstone of our society; namely that all people in America will be free to practice their faith without fear of retribution or discrimination for so doing.
That principle is under attack today and, ironically, it is being attacked by the very people who claim to hold the Constitution and the tenets of the Founding Fathers near and dear to their hearts.
This attack has been wrappped in the cloak of bogus outrage over locating a mosque that isn't even a mosque at "Ground Zero" — one that is not really at "Ground Zero", but on "hallowed ground" that is really nothing more than an old Burlington Coat factory in lower Manhattan, at least two blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood.
This attack on religious freedom is nothing but another element of a cynical strategy on the part of the American Right to gin up fear and racial, ethnic and religious tensions and intolerance, in the hope of scoring political victories in this fall's midterm elections.
What I don't understand is why the right wing pundits and politicians — from Sarah Palin and Laura Ingraham to Glenn Beck and Rand Paul — aren't being called out for the traitors that they really are.
They, and those who follow them, are, by ginning up such overt anti-Muslim bigotry for personal, financial and political gain, not only providing our real enemies, like Osama bin Laden, with the best recruitment tools he's had since the U.S, stationed troops on Saudi soil, they are also endangering our brave troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This bigotry has moved beyond the debate over the proposed Muslim community center in Manhattan to protests being staged by erstwhile "Christians" to stop Muslim Americans from building houses of worship in numerous cities and towns across the country.
How can these faux patriotic, Tea Partying types think of themselves as genuine Americans with an understanding of what this country is really all about. They haven't a clue, I guess, as to just how "un-American" they really are.
MICHAEL COOK
Gloucester
