I mean, all religions are the same right? (Sumblog 7)

I think during our discussion of whether or not Muslims should be allowed to build a mosque 2 blocks from ground zero was very interesting to me. Especially because the day before an acquaintance of mine was questioned because of her religious faith as being a Muslim and the founder of the Muslim Student Association at UW-Green Bay but after she graduated in May really hasn’t been a part of the organization. She wrote a letter to her city councilman about how to get free bus transportation on Election Day so that everyone could get access to their polling locations. Her reasons behind there were many, including the fact that Green Bay has free bus rides for all packer football days. The city councilman responded by basically saying he’ll get to that question later, and then asked her if her organization supported Sharia law, and mentioned other problems that MSA’s have had across the country, while never actually listing any problems MSA’s have had. This is interesting because in class a lot of folks said how New York Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to build a mosque “so close” to ground zero… but we never really talked about why. We just said because it was insensitive, because it’s still a big problem that people aren’t comfortable with. We never talked about how in New York two blocks is different than two blocks in Stevens Point. How about, there’s this big problem of Americans being blind to other religions and how diverse each religion is. For example, when we talk about Christianity, people are always ready to jump and say what denomination they’re from. Catholic, Lutheran, Mormon, etc. But when we discuss non-Christian religions we go in and just start talking about the overall religion as if the individual groups that broke from that religion aren’t impactful in how the whole entity is viewed.

               I think the main issue is that when we talk about religion, we were all raised differently, but as far as education goes, there wasn’t much religious diversity taught. We were taught overall religions and then told that those were the only aspects to those religions. I think we cannot get confused, because how would a Christian feel if they were told they couldn’t build a church next to a military graveyard because the Westborro Baptist Church protested and were insulting and the wounds caused from that experience were still too fresh. They probably would be very upset that ANYONE would think the extremist group of the Westborro Baptist Church was any reflection on overall Christians.

There are many, many photos, videos, memes and posts about this type of idea. But let me again point out that this meme compares a SMALL DENOMINATION to AN ENTIRE RELIGIOUS ENTITY. Never did they say Muslim Extremists, they said Muslims. Where's our cultural relativism?