All American, But Not If You Are Muslim?

I was really going to stay out of this one, but when I saw who filed the complaint causing Lowe's to pull their commercials on the new reality show "All American Muslim", I just couldn't help myself. 

The show airing on TLC, "is an eight-part series that follows five Muslim families living in Dearborn, Michigan. Each episode offers an intimate look at the customs and celebrations, misconceptions and conflicts these families face outside and within their own community," TLC said in the description. 

With so many misconceptions surrounding this religion, and  the "media-Muslims" getting all the attention and making it worse for the many millions of ordinary, peace loving Muslims, it sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? But no, not to right-wing Christians. 

According to CNN, the controversy, and Lowe's decision to pull their spots, followed a complaint by the Florida Family Association. The group warned Lowe's in a letter that the show "is attempting to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad and to influence them to believe that being concerned about the jihad threat would somehow victimize these nice people in this show."  

  

According to their website, Florida Family Association is standing up to "a coalition of people with an assortment of strong viewpoints who stand against traditional, God fearing Americans. This bloc of people is commonly referred to as secular progressives." From the information they list, these progressives apparently include everybody who is not right wing christian - and especially those who tolerate/accept homosexuality, believes in equal rights for gays and lesbians, thinks pornography is OK, believes in women's right to choose, believes in freedom of religion and speech, or as they say "fundamental socialists, who are hostile toward Christianity and traditional American values.  They are committed to dramatically changing America to look like the godless, socialistic Western Europe."

Obviously David Caton and his followers have made up their mind about homosexuality being horribly wrong, to the point where they seem to be afraid "to catch it" if they get too close, or actually got to know a gay person.  Now it seems they feel the same way about Muslims.  In a country  built on religious freedom, it doesn't seem to matter  to FFA that  these are "All AMERICAN Muslims." FFA seems afraid we may actually learn something about their culture and thereby not shun all Muslims in our fear of jihad. 

I checked their site for a campaign targeting "The Sister Wives" - a man having sex with and living with more than one wife must certainly be considered "hostile toward Christianity and traditional American values", I thought, but they seem to be OK with that concept. Maybe because the family (or as I like to say, family with the extra three women he is cheating on his wife with) in that show is based on some odd interpretation of the Bible, not the Koran?

Photo by David Castillo Dominci/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Now I wonder, what would America look like if we were like the "godless, socialistic Western Europe".  Most of those countries have state religions, yet it seems they not only allow religious freedom, but also monetarily support other religions. They also teach religion in public schools (!)  What a concept!  Teaching children about other religions so that they may actually learn about, and thus learn to accept each others cultures and backgrounds? Why don't we do that here? I'm sadly afraid that would not work in America.  As much as right wing Christians seem to want the right to pray and practice their religion in schools, I am convinced they would push to have only Christianity taught in school, as we of course would not want our school system to manipulate American children into ignoring the threat of jihad and to influence them to believe that being concerned about the jihad threat would somehow victimize the other kids in their class...

MoveOn.org also ran the story of Lowe's pulling their ad on the show, and I am borrowing one of the comments to their article which really says it all:  I'm a Conservative, Tea party, Republican and I kinda have to agree that Lowe's made a bad call in pulling that ads. I honestly don't see how this show can be manipulative and hiding Islamic agenda. The group that filed such a claim with Lowe's should retract their statement or complaint. I mean come on this show is just showing a Muslim American perspective. Key WORD is AMERICAN!!!  ... To my many Conservative friends on Move on there is no way to defend this. This group that filed the claim filed a baseless claim. I do encourage people to watch this show and see America from a different perspective. I mean we are all Americans here ... Progressives and Conservatives alike have one thing in common that no one can argue against. Were all Americans...!!!!

As a footnote, I want to say I don't disagree with everything FFA does, nor do I think they are all ignorant,  bad people.  I think their fight to stop pornography is good, as I too find the treatment of women in that industry so degrading, and I certainly support their campaigns to have what might appear as honor killings properly investigated by the police.  That being said, I wish FFA and their supporters would be more open minded and see that not everything "different" is bad, and that they may actually find common ground with some of the groups they continuously fight against, if they just bothered to listen. Religion should be the basis for creating peace, not conflicts and wars!