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06 April 2011 By Juan Cole Most of us in America learned something about
prejudice and stereotypes in school. We know it's
wrong to misrepresent whole groups of people by
highlighting only the worst behavior amongst them.
Anyone can easily "prove" their religion, ideology, or
culture is the most supreme by cherry-picking the
worst examples of their opponents and "comparing" it
to their highest ideals. Stereotyping, quite frankly,
is cheating in the discipline of comparative
religion/ideology/culture. But for Robert Spencer,
stereotyping isn't a social evil to be resisted. It's
a career. Well, let's turn the tables on him. A former youth
pastor in Council Bluffs, Iowa, says he had sex with
teenage boys because it was his pastoral duty "to help
(the teen) with homosexual urges by praying while he
had sexual contact with him." Earlier this month, Brent Girouex, 31, was
arrested on 60 counts of suspicion of sexual
exploitation by a counselor or therapist,
reported The Daily Nonpareil… Court documents indicated Girouex told
investigators the most sexual contact he had was
with one teen over a four-year period, starting when
the boy was 14 years old. Calling the contact
"mutual," he said it had occurred between "25 and 50
times" during that period… "When they would ejaculate, they would be getting
rid of the evil thoughts in their mind," Girouex
allegedly told detectives. Truly a bizarre, counter-intuitive, and horribly
disturbing account of a Christian leader exploiting
his position of authority and trust to sexually
gratify himself at the expense of innocent minors.
This is certainly not the first time a priest or
minister has abused children. If we were running an
anti-Christian hate site (similar to Spencer's
anti-Muslim hate site), this incident would make a
fine addition to our police blotter propaganda. We
could make a strong case for the weak-minded that
Christianity is a sex-with-boys religion. After all,
Mr. Girouex appealed to
Christian theology and scriptures to justify
his misdeeds. This sort of thing happens all the time!
What more evidence do you need? Case closed. Or is it? We're not running an anti-Christian hate
site. We know the vast majority of Christians reject
this kind of behavior. Neither does Mr. Girouex's
action agree with the spirit of Christianity. It'scommon
sense. Rather, we promote the American values of
tolerance and pluralism. We have stated this
repeatedly. Yet, if you're Robert Spencer, whatever a
Muslim does wrong, no matter how aberrant or outside
the mainstream, it must have happened because of Islam
and no other reason, even if the perpetrator is
mentally ill. So here's my question, Mr. Spencer. Is it fair to
label Christianity a religion of sexual perversion? Is
it fair to blame Christian theology and texts for
these crimes? Should we hold senate hearings to
protect little boys from their Churches? Shouldn't we
stop being "politically correct"? Aren't all
Christians collectively guilty for not speaking out
enough? Aren't we justified if we gather together
toshout obscenities outside the local church of the
raping-boys religion? Of course, Spencer won't accept that any of these
suggestions are fair, but when it comes to Islam there
is a different standard. And this, as we learned in
grade school, is the essence of stereotyping. Not only
does Spencer consistently violate the
Golden
Rule ("do unto others what you would have done
unto yourself"), in which he claims to believe, but
also, as
Senator
Durbin recently said, his hateful rhetoric
violates "the spirit of our Bill of Rights." Your Islamophobic House of Cards is falling, Bob.
Keep working on that résumé. Terry Jones, Dove World Outreach Center Pastor, Defends Quran Burning On ‘Hardball' (VIDEO) Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center, appeared on "Hardball" Thursday (Aug. 26) to defend his church's decision to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11. "We have declared September the 11th ‘International Burn a Quran Day' because we want to send a very clear message," Jones said. "It is indeed a radical message but a very clear, radical message to Muslims, to Sharia law, that that is not welcome in America." The "International Burn a Quran Day" is just the latest in a series of anti-Islamic protests that the Dove World Outreach Center holds each year to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, who called Jones' plans to burn the Islamic holy book "a terrible idea" and warned that it "could cause trouble and even death" when televised in Muslim countries, asked, "What do you think the reaction will be as this goes on international television? What will be the consequence?" "We believe that this message will be received as it is intended, as a warning," Jones said. |