How Sacred is 9/11?

The biggest news out of any media outlet is the hubbub that has arisen from plans of a mosque being constructed within eyesight of Ground Zero, where over 3000 people died in attacks on the World Trade Center by Muslim extremists. Americans are up in arms about the idea of something so close to such hallowed ground, that it is a slap in the face for those who died and sacrificed themselves to help out in this tragedy.

Then again, so was not passing health care for people involved with 9/11 and are now having serious health problems. But whatever.

Glenn Beck said that the proposed mosque isn’t just a mosque, but a statement: you wouldn’t build a Christian megachurch in the middle of Saudi Arabia, or in the middle of Utah, unless you were trying to make a statement.

This would be all fine and dandy, except what a lot of people aren’t getting is that the mosque isn’t going to be blatantly put in everyone’s face. In fact, there is already a mosque sitting within eyesight of Ground Zero that has been there before the World Trade Center even existed, and yet no one is holding rallies to shut it down.

The heart of the problem, as much as I hate to say it, is a misconception about both the circumstances of the mosque, and also of Islam in general. Doing any preliminary research, one would know that it is a mosque inside of a cultural learning center. The center is probably so close to Ground Zero to make a statement, with the statement being that while, yes, is was Islamic extremists that flew the planes into the towers and killed so many people, there is more to Islam than blowing things up.

Which brings us to the second problem: misunderstanding the Muslim faith. It’s a phenomena called Islamophobia, and it works much the same as homophobia or arachnophobia; you find someone that practices Islam, you project your prejudices upon that person, and then you fear or hate them.

There is no doubt that the events of 9/11 completely shook up the world. There is also no doubt that there is some lingering fear from the 9/11 attacks, and no one is exactly sure who to trust. But blocking someone from building a house of worship, no matter where it is being built, is just wrong, especially when it is a belief system that you don’t agree with.

Another pundit made the point that there is a church near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the same building that Timothy McVeigh, a Christian, bombed. Where is the uproar? Where is the incredulity? Where is the call to arms to shut down this church for the sake of the victims involved?

All I’m asking for is a little consistency, something that seems to be lacking in this day and age. Either we need to go back to every terror attack site, and eliminate all houses of worship related to the attackers, or we can take a deep breath, and look at this new building for what it’s worth: a chance for people to better know a thing they fear so greatly.

How to Fix the Bully Problem

On the morning of 11 August, I turned on the TV to see a story that has sadly become an all too common story: 11-year-old Ty Field was being bullied, so severely and so relentlessly that he felt his only way to escape it was to commit suicide. It’s the same story that happened a few years ago to Megan Meier, who was bullied over MySpace to the point where she hanged herself in her closet.

In fact, a simple Google search of “bully suicide” produces nearly 1.7 million hits. Story after story about teenage kids bullied to the point where they have no other choice but to kill themselves. Stories about kids like Phoebe Prince, who killed herself after being tormented by a clique of high school girls; or Jon Carmichael, who killed himself after being bullied by most of his school; or even Jared High, who killed himself in 1998 because of bullying. A website about Jared links to several other kids and teens who have committed suicide due to bullying.

In the MSNBC interview I saw with Ty’s father, the question was asked, “Why are so many kids committing suicide today? What is different about your generation than this generation?”

The response was, “Part of it is all of these violent video games.” I cursed out loud.

As someone who was bullied in my younger days (and at times am still bullied today), I can assure everyone that it is not violent video games that make people violent. It does not desensitize people to violence, it doesn’t create violent people. Study after study after study has proven that there is no link between violence and video games. It is a foolish assumption that television, movies, video games, and music can completely change a person’s character. Violent people are predisposed to violence.

But Ty’s father continued his answer: “It is also the technology of the age. Bullies are now able to torment their victims 24/7.”

I immediately apologized. It was the wisest thing I’ve heard about bullying yet. Technologies like Facebook and MySpace, which are accessible whenever, along with Internet anonymity, provide a whole new avenue of bullying which has never been seen before. Anyone can be anyone else and can say whatever they want, and they feel like there are no consequences.

Lori Drew, when creating a fake MySpace account, thought she would just mess with Megan Meier to get back at Megan for spreading rumors about her daughter. The result was suicide.

How do we solve the problem of bullying? Short answer: we can’t.

We can’t because as of right now, there is no concrete definition of “bullying.” The definition we have is: “act of repeated aggressive behavior in order to intentionally hurt another person, physically or mentally.”

This happens every day, not out of hatred, and not out of abuse, but out of kids being kids. Kids will hate other kids over stupid things, and as a result, they will make fun of and torment other kids. It happens, and it only gets out of control when people don’t intervene.

But who should intervene? The schools are doing all they can, and there is a stigma of being a snitch when reporting instances of bullying.

Like most problems with children, the responsibility lies in the parents. Parents should make sure that they are raising kids in a positive environment, and to notice when their kids are not quite right. Kids don’t just wake up one morning and are violent, just like they just don’t wake up one morning and swear. It comes from somewhere, and many times, it comes from the home.

Ty’s father said, “No one sits at the dinner table and talks anymore.” Shouldn’t we get back to that?

The Stigma of Christianity

Shocking news broke last week in the world of literature: author Anne Rice has quit Christianity. The status updates on her Facebook page spell out exactly how she feels:

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

… I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

It’s a decision that doesn’t come lightly. The day before, Rice posted several links of unChristian-like behavior in the world, including the punk rock ministry group You Can Run But You Cannot Hide stating that Muslims that kill homosexuals are more moral than American Christians, and children of Westboro Baptist Church members firmly believing that all Americans are going to Hell.

Anne Rice’s decision to quit Christianity but still remain in Christ is an interesting, and all too common, decision. And in one status update, she poses and interesting question: “When does a word become unusable? When does it become so burdened with history and horror that it cannot be evoked without destructive controversy?”

The history of Christianity is one that is mired with controversy. From the Crusades in the 13th Century, in which European Christians slaughtered Muslims and Jews in an attempt to win back the Holy Land, to the hate-filled preachers and actions of today, Christianity is a label that many people try to avoid. In fact, the difference between being a Christian and being a follower of Christ is so profound, that many people have written about it. It’s such a big topic of discussion that one church has outlined the difference in a series of video parodies.

It’s a topic that I’ve turned in my mind many times, and still do to this day. Being a Christian has a certain stigma to it. As an outsider looking in, it seems that being a Christian means to hate groups that are not like yours, to live the opposite of what is preached, and to vote straight-ticket Republican.

That kind of stigma could explain why so many people are turning away from organized religion, and instead searching for their own religious affiliation. Ghandi once said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” For many, this is a wake-up call to find something better.

And it should be a wake-up call. When Christians are called to love but instead go out and spread hate, they are acting completely against the narrative. There needs to be a major paradigm shift, and it needs to happen now.

I wish Anne Rice the best of luck. I hope she realizes she has a massive support group of like-minded people, and that she is not alone in trying to confront the hypocrisy.

The End of the Birther Argument

Last week, while I was sent on several shopping expeditions, I noticed that the tabloid magazine The Globe had a shocking and disturbing article: they found the President’s actual birth certificate from Kenya, with all of the correct birth information.

It seems weird to me that after nearly two years of being President, people still believe that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Never mind that Obama has already written a memoir about his childhood, including a considerable section about how he grew up for a while in America before moving to Indonesia.

People who honestly believe the lie that Obama is not a US citizen because he was born in Kenya are missing more than a few brain cells. If the lie were true, that Obama isn’t a US citizen, someone would have found out during the primaries and would have asked Obama to respectfully withdraw from running for President.

However, a co-worker of mine this summer pointed out something that was pretty interesting: even if Obama was born in Kenya, he would still be eligible for Presidency, and thus the administration is still legal.

The US Constitution states: “No person except a natural-born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” The language here is pretty clear: as long as the candidate in question is at least 35, lived in the US for 14 years, and is a natural-born US citizen, they can be President.

Which brings us to Obama. Assuming that The Globe is right and has clearly broken the story of the century (and curiously has no major news network covering the story), Obama being born in Kenya to an African father and an American mother still means that Obama is a natural-born citizen. 8 U.S.C. § 1401 says that “a person born in an outlying possession of the United States of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person” is a citizen of the United States. Obama’s mother falls under this category, being born and raised in Kansas before being whisked away to Kenya.

In this scenario, because Obama is still considered a citizen of the United States at birth, he would be a natural-born citizen, thus eligible for the Presidency. Check and mate, Birther Movement.

What’s even more interesting is that Obama’s rival in the Presidential election, John McCain, has similar questions about his citizenship, and yet no one seems to be calling him out on it. McCain was born in Panama to two American parents, but a technicality in 8 U.S.C. § 1403 means that he might not actually be a US citizen.

Then again, the language is pretty clear: “Any person born in the Canal Zone on or after February 26, 1904 … whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such person was or is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States.”

Bottom line is this: no matter what the Birther Movement tries to spew as fact, it isn’t going to work. Because Obama’s mother is a US citizen, Obama is a natural-born US citizen, and he met all three eligibility requirements for the Presidency. The administration is legal, and anyone who tries to say otherwise is either a racist, or really has zero grasp on the Constitution they cling so dearly to.