The Washington Post reports that CAIR, an Islamic Civil Rights group, has demanded that Dennis Prager be removed from the U.S. Holocaust Museum Council. The reason?
CAIR is offended that Prager wrote an article criticizing newly elected Congressmen Keith Ellison for insisting on using the Koran instead of the Bible at his swearing-in ceremony. Prager pointed out that Mormons don’t insist on swearing in using a Book of Mormon and that atheists don’t insist on swearing in using a non-religious book. Yet Ellison wants special treatment that no other congressman has demanded in our nation’s history.
Here are CAIR’s comments:
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Monday that comments by Dennis Prager, a columnist and conservative talk radio host, displayed an intolerance toward Islam that makes him inappropriate to serve on the council, which oversees the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
You can read the full article and the supposedly offensive statements by Prager at Townhall.com.
Prager also responds in a new column to CAIR’s attack on him:
Accusation: My column and/or I are racist, bigoted and Islamophobic.
Response: “Racist”: It is impossible to fully respond to absurdity. How is race possibly involved in my wanting the Bible to be present at swearings-in of American politicians? I wrote in my column that I apply the same standard to Jews, Scientologists and everyone else. Those who make this charge merely cheapen the word racism and therefore weaken the fight against it.
“Islamophobic”: I wrote not a word against Islam or the Koran and made it clear at the beginning of my column that nothing I write is specific to Islam or the Koran. All those who write that I “compared” the Koran to “Mein Kampf” are lying — deliberately lying to defame me rather than respond to my arguments. I simply offered a slippery slope argument that if we let everyone choose their own text at swearings-in, what will happen one day should a racist decide to use “Mein Kampf”? A slippery slope argument is not an equivalence argument. The Left regularly argues that vouchers to support Catholic schools can one day be used to support religious extremists’ schools. Are they comparing Catholicism to religious extremism? Of course not. And no one on the Right has ever stooped so low as to make such a charge. Moreover, I not only mentioned “Mein Kampf,” I mentioned “Dianetics,” Scientology’s most revered work, the works of Voltaire (for secularists) and other works.
“Bigoted”: Bigoted against whom? Against non-Christians? I am a non-Christian. Am I bigoted against myself as a Jew? I happen to be one of the most active individuals in American Jewish life and co-author of probably the most widely used English-language introduction to Judaism of the last 30 years.
In fact, it is as a Jew that I am so aware of the fragility of all civilizations, including ours. I am therefore aware of how uniquely good America has been for all its citizens, including and especially its Jews. This uniqueness does not stem from secularism alone, but from an extraordinary Judeo-Christian value system that has been our civic religion. Europe is secular and is a failing civilization; one that is also increasingly judenrein [empty of Jews] because of its anti-Semitism.
I am for no law to be passed to prevent Keith Ellison or anyone else from bringing any book he wants to his swearing-in, whether actual or ceremonial. But neither I nor tens of millions of other Americans will watch in silence as the Bible is replaced with another religious text for the first time since George Washington brought a Bible to his swearing-in. It is not I, but Keith Ellison, who has engaged in disuniting the country.
My two cents: Prager’s article was not racist/bigoted/etc. He made legitimate points about Ellison’s divisive decision to insist on swearing-in on a Koran instead of the Bible. Why does CAIR want to censor his comments? And how on earth does CAIR think it is qualified to preach about who should or should not be on the council of the US Holocaust Museum.
Prager, who is Jewish, has written about the dangers of anti-Semitism before and about the Holocaust. CAIR, on the other hand, maintains a militantly anti-Israel (some might even say anti-Semitic) policy and has never publicly criticized the violence of the Palestinians against the Israelis nor rebuked Islamic fundamentalists for their intense hatred of the Jewish people. This makes CAIR’s comments on this issue hypocritical as well as unfair to Prager.
