There is a lot of disagreement about whether a moderate form of Islam exists. Lawrence Auster believes that there is no Moderate Islam. He defends his position in a very lengthy article at Front Page Magazine. The article attempts to refute Daniel Pipes’ belief that there is a moderate form of Islam and that our one chance of successfuly defending ourselves from Islam depends on finding and encouraging the moderates (you will find links to Pipes’ articles in Auster’s article). Some agree with Auster because we don’t hear these moderates condemning the actions of the ‘radical’ Muslims. Others say the moderates aren’t condemning the radicals because they are afraid of repercussions. I don’t know. But I do know that what we call radical Islam is incompatible with our culture and laws.
What can we do if radical Islam comes to our country? (I’m not talking about terrorist activity. I’m talking about the actual practice of the religion.) With our present laws there is nothing we can do until they break one of those laws. That is because the Supreme Court has interpreted the free exercise clause of the First Ammendment to mean that we cannot interfere with mere religious beliefs and opinions, but we may with practices. From the Find Law web site:
The Belief-Conduct Distinction. While the Court has consistently affirmed that the Free Exercise Clause protects religious beliefs, protection for religiously motivated conduct has waxed and waned over the years. The Free Exercise Clause ”embraces two concepts– freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute, but in the nature of things, the second cannot be.” In its first free exercise case, involving the power of government to prohibit polygamy, the Court invoked a hard distinction between the two, saying that although laws ”cannot interfere with mere religious beliefs and opinions, they may with practices.”
This contradicts the somewhat simplistic view of Thomas Jefferson that we have erected “a wall of separation between church and state.”
So, despite our freedom-of-religion guarantees we can punish certain religious practices when those practices break our laws. But what can we do if the prospect of punishment does not deter illegal religious practices? Is there some way to preempt the illegal practices? Getting answers to these questions will require more research — or help from readers.
Finding way to remove First Amendment protections from Islam is a promising direction for further investigation. You have suggested one approach. Another is simply to certify that Isalm is not a religion in the normal sense of that word, but a political movement hostile to our form of government and seeking the power to destroy it.
Approach it very simply: Is a belief system that mandates death for anyone who converts out of it, worthy of being seen as a religion with protected freedoms? Once we see Islam as it really is, the mistake of giving Muslims freedom of religion becomes apparent.
If such a change could be made, and the practice of Islam were outlawed in this country, we would not have to deport the Muslims. They would leave on their own. They would come to see America as Muhammad saw Mecca, an inhospitable place whence he needed to leave find a more welcoming home. That more welcoming home is the Islamic world. That is where Muslims belong, and where they will be happy. Among us, they can only get angrier and angrier.
Thank you for your comment. I think we have laws against ‘inciting to riot’ and ‘advocating the violent overthrow of the government’. Perhaps we can use those laws when they start preaching jihad. We shouldn’t wait until they start performing honor killings.
Auster’s assertion that there is no such thing as moderate Islam is a bit simplistic. I’m no fan of Islam, of course, but there are many moderates out there. If there were not, the jihadi problem would be much, much bigger than it is. Think of how many Muslims populate India and Indonesia alone. Judaism, within certain historical contexts calls for eradication of the infidels, so to speak. To some degree, the Zionist movement was a sort of softer version of jihad. Christianity, on the contrary does have any such commands. The real issue, though, is how certain passages are approached. The run of the mill Muslim on the street does not interpret various passages in the Koran to require murder nor forced conversion of non-Muslims. In fact, one famous statement of Mohammed is “You have your religion, and I have mine.”
However, radical elements in Islam do seem to gather remarkably high portions of the Muslim/Arab community to their side, much more so than any other faith. Therein lies the real issue. What is the appeal of the radicals? What can be done about them? Certainly the inciting of riot or violence is forbidden by US law and upheld by the courts. In other nations, there isnothing we can do beyond covert and not-so-covert exercises to scatter them.
But back to Auster: Given the existence in the world today of 1.3 billion Muslims, to state that moderation does not exist among Muslims is preposterous. If his staements were true, we would all be goners, or close to it. Also, it is important to keep in mind that nations like Iran and Afghanistan steal the spotlight a bit, and the many other Muslim nations that are anti-terror and/or moderate in practice (like Morocco, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Indonesia, etc.) aren’t as easily noticed.
Philip, you make some good points but you might be coming down a little hard on Auster. Consider that the name of his article is ‘The Search for Moderate Islam’. He might be trying to provoke the moderate Muslims, if they exist, to come forward and defend their religion before it is too late. These people have to wake up and determine which side of their bread is buttered. Do they (for example, the people of Dearbornistan) want to keep quiet and give tacit approval to the radicals — and risk getting thrown out of this country — or do they want to speak up against the radicals and expel them from their community?
Obviously, though, Auster is pessimstic about the existence of moderate Muslims. He suspects that those that appear to be moderate are just more risk averse than the radicals. He suspects that as the radicals gain ground more and more of the moderates will join them. That is, the only difference between radical and moderate muslims is that the radicals are willing to risk life and limb for their beliefs while the moderates are not.
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“Moderate Islam” has been around for centuries is places like Turkey.
The fact that you even have to ask this question shows a poor grasp of world history.