Religious Bigotry

I try not to read Charles Krauthammer's columns very often. I like to keep my blood pressure within the healthy normal range, and his opinions frequently thwart that goal. However, because I've been so mellowed out by the holiday weekend, probably because I've consumed so much tryptophan-laden turkey, I made an exception and trooped over to his most recent effort in the Washington Post.

I shouldn't have bothered. Mr. Krauthammer still doesn't get it. What ostensibly starts out as a critique of the movie Borat, soon descends into a paean to American religious tolerance, especially when it comes to Jews. I haven't seen the movie, and I probably won't (I rarely go to movies), but from what I've heard from those who have, it is a brilliant demonstration of the kind of bigotry that Americans are capable of if they are comfortable enough or drunk enough. Here's Krauthammer's assessment:

America is the most welcoming, religiously tolerant, philo-Semitic country in the world. No nation since Cyrus the Great's Persia has done more for the Jews. And its reward is to be exposed as latently anti-Semitic by an itinerant Jew looking for laughs and, he solemnly assures us, for the path to the Holocaust? [Emphasis added.]

First, with respect to the "philo-Semitic" aspect, I think Mr. Krauthammer is being more than a little disingenuous. I suspect he is confusing support for Israel, a nation, with attitudes toward Jews in general. Yes, the US has long blindly supported Israel in whatever it does, often to the detriment of our foreign policy, and there are geo-political reasons for that. There are also other factors at play in the support of the nation of Israel, especially amongst the religious reich.

When it comes to Jews, however, I think too many Americans have a different attitude. I mean, when was the last time we elected a Jewish president? We've certainly had and have many politicians who would have been worthy of consideration, among them the late Paul Wellstone (who asserted that he couldn't be president because he was too short and Jewish), and the current senator from Wisconsin, Russell Feingold.

And as to the first part of the emphasized quote, the part about America being "the most welcoming, religiously tolerant" nation in the world, well, it is to laugh. Ironically, during the same time frame of Mr. Krauthammer's column we learned that several Muslim imams were removed from a U.S. Airways flight because they made other passengers "nervous." The incident provoked the newly elected congressman from Minnesota (the first Muslim elected to Congress in US history)to call for a meeting with the airlines' management and that of the airport in question. From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Congressman-elect Keith Ellison wants to meet with executives of US Airways and the Metropolitan Airports Commission to discuss the removal of six Muslim clerics from a flight on Monday.

...The pilot ordered the imams off the flight after their praying, conversation and behavior alarmed several passengers and flight attendants on the Phoenix-bound flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The incident drew national attention. The Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has said it will review the incident.

..."While some constituents have understood the fears of the passenger who reported the clerics' prayers as suspicious activity, many more have expressed shock and surprise at what they perceive as discrimination," Ellison wrote.

Just how "welcoming" and "religiously tolerant" is that?

No, Mr. Krauthammer, religious bigotry still abounds in this country and I think it is surging right now. I think Borat got it right, if my friends' reports are accurate. I think you need a vision exam.