One of the most nerve wracking and misidentified ideas today is the idea that anything that is anything against Islam is Racist.
This is a knee-jerk conflation of two disparate forms of identification and discrimination.
The conflation is easy to do, as it stems from a commonly seen statement, especially in hiring practices. The statement usually reads as something to the effect of:
"...without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender,
national origin, age, disability, marital or veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other legally
protected status."
Notice how 'race' and 'religion' are treated with equal deference.
One relates to a physical characteristic obtained simply by the pairing of one's parents. There is no input involved, nor is there anything that can be done to change it. Race is hard wired into your DNA.
The other starts as an accident of birth, but may change several times over one's lifetime. One may be born into a Christian household, and be raised as a Christian for their childhood, but might become Buddhist as adult. Or visa-versa.
In Islam, there are a large number of Arab members. But there are also a large number of Indonesian members as well. There are Black Muslims, White Muslims, Asian Muslims, and Latino Muslims.
Are you able to discern the difference?
Now, lets go back to the non-discrimination statement.
There are exceptions, legal exceptions, to this statement. A non-profit Christian organization is completely within their rights to expect that their employees be professing Christians. The same goes for a non-profit Islamic organization, or a non-profit Jewish organization.
There are times and situations where discrimination is legally allowed.
All of this is to point out that if you are going to make any argument for or against Islamic refugees, at least have an idea of what it is you are really arguing about.
PMV.
