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Several years ago a friend asked me and a number of her other friends to write essays on what it means to be a woman. She was going to make a book out of it and give it to her daughter for her 21st birthday. I sat at the computer for hours and nothing came to me. Then, suddenly, I knew what to say. I bought a postcard with an alluring picture of a woman on it and I wrote simply, “Women have all the power.”
‘Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom”
Whose quote is that? If you guessed Osama Bin Laden you are wrong, though it sounds like something only a theocratic leader might say.
In fact, it was Mitt Romney in his speech defending his faith last Thursday. What was so astounding about what he said was the tortured logic in which he defended his own right to believe in his faith, by completely excluding anyone of no faith. “Freedom and religion endure together or perish alone,” he continued.
It was as if he were in a bubble, completely disenfranchising million and millions of decent moral patriotic American citizens who were doubters, agnostics, freethinkers or atheists.
Once, just once, wouldn’t you love to see the politician up there at the lectern sweating bullets, apologizing for letting down his wife and family …. alone?
Once, just once, wouldn’t you love to see the wife issuing her own statement saying that what he had done was unacceptable and that she was leaving him?
Wouldn’t that be morally correct?
Quiz
See if you can tell who said what in this list of quotes: Answers at the bottom.
1. After 9/11, in a debate at Wheaton College with conservative Gary Bauer, Bauer said, “I know this is hard for you to believe, but the enemy is not John Ashcroft, the enemy is Osama Bin Ladin:
Our first mystery guest said: “I’m not sure about that. When you start taking away the rights of the American citizens, when you undercut the Bill of Rights in order to pursue security, I think you become more dangerous than Bin Laden. I think that if this country goes down, it will not be because of the enemies that are outside this country. I think that if this country goes down, it’s because those within the country undercut our basic rights, undercut the principles that gave birth to this institution.”
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What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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