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Deadly Riots Show Value of Religious Liberty, Experts Say
Randy Hall
Staff Writer/Editor

(CNSNews.com) - The violent reaction to an erroneous report alleging that U.S. military interrogators had desecrated the Koran underscores the importance of a multi-religious society like America, according to experts on the Christian and Muslim faiths.

While disagreeing on whether "deep faith" or "increasing secularism" are more important, the scholars told Cybercast News Service that the freedom to hold divergent religious beliefs prevents more riots like those that have claimed the lives of at least 17 people in Afghanistan over the past week.

Newsweek's May 9 story, retracted on Monday after the magazine's source in the U.S. government backed away from details, claimed that a copy of the Koran had been flushed down a toilet during an interrogation at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Following publication of that original report, deadly anti-American riots broke out in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world.

Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman and founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, placed the responsibility for the scandal squarely on Newsweek and investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, who supplied the source for one of his colleagues to write the story.

But Sheldon said he thought such religious violence was unlikely to take place in America since "it's a Judeo-Christian nation, and our faith as Christians of all different sorts and Jews runs deep.

"Because we do still have the religious freedom to worship and to attend Bible study and have religious meetings, people don't react" as strongly when their beliefs are challenged, Sheldon said. Instead, he added that "they tend to feel that they're going to give themselves more to their personal piety and faith."

John Esposito, professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown University and author of "What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam," expressed a different view of the situation.

"Forty or 50 years ago, if you said anything terrible about Jesus or Moses, people would have been apoplectic," Esposito said. "When we do polls, we come out as a religious nation, but we're not all that traditionally religious."

As a result, "comedians can say stuff on TV about prophets and sacred books and it can be as blasphemous as you like," he noted.

Esposito said Muslims believe the Koran "is the living, literal word of God. It's not like looking at the Bible from the point of view of modern biblical criticism, which says, 'Yes, it's the word of God, but it's mediated through human authors.' For Muslims, God is present in the Koran, and the book is treated as if it's sacred."

He also pointed out that Americans during more recent times have been more likely to be enraged over affronts to their patriotism than their religion. "We're a country that goes apoplectic when, instead of burning a Bible, you desecrate a flag," he said. "Then there are some Americans who are willing to say, 'Don't just arrest them, you beat the s*** out of them and then arrest them,'" Esposito said.

Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, indicated to Cybercast News Service that radical Islamic militants must shoulder much of the blame for the recent violence.

"Without reprisal, Muslims have recently desecrated churches (think of the terrorists who holed up in the Church of the Nativity), burned Torahs (think of the Tomb of Joseph) and destroyed Buddhist statues (think of Bamiyan)," Pipes stated in an email exchange with Cybercast News Service. "But even a whisper of disrespect for the sanctities of Islam provokes outrage and even violence (think of Salman Rushdie's novel, "The Satanic Verses").

"Either non-Muslims firmly reject unequal standards or they will before long find these will dominate their lives," Pipes added.

See Earlier Stories:
Newsweek Retraction Won't Stop Planned Protests, Radical Groups Say (May 17, 2005)
Free Korans for the American People (May 17, 2005)
Newsweek Backtracks as Anger Spreads Over Koran Claim (May 16, 2005)
Pentagon Finds No Evidence Koran Was Defiled (May 13, 2005)

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