I just received this in my email this morning from someone I know:

A Christian Nation cannot put up a Christmas scene of the baby Jesus in a public place, but the Muslims can stop normal traffic every Friday afternoon by worshiping in the streets. Something is happening in America that is reminiscent of what is happening in Europe . This is Political Correctness gone crazy.Scary! Isn't it? This is NYC on Madison Ave This is an accurate picture of every Friday afternoon in several locations throughout NYC where there are mosques with a large number of Muslims that cannot fit into the mosque - They fill the surrounding streets, facing east for a couple of hours between about 2 & 4 p.m. - Besides this one at 42nd St & Madison Ave, there is another, even larger group, at 94th St & 3rd Ave, etc., etc. - Also, I presume, you are aware of the dispute over building another 'high rise' Mosque a few blocks from 'ground zero' - With regard to that one, the 'Imam' refuses to disclose where the $110 million dollars to build it is coming from and there is a lawsuit filed to force disclosure of that information - November can't come soon enough. This is in New York City on Madison Avenue, not in France or the Middle East or Yemen or Kenya. Is there a message here???? Yes, there is, and they are claiming America for Allah. If we don't wake up soon, we are going to 'politically correct' ourselves right out of our own country! PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERY CHRISTIAN AMERICAN YOU KNOW!!!!

Included in this email are pictures of Muslims in New York praying outside their overcrowded mosque. I dithered about replying to this, because I hate to get into political or religious arguments in email, and this one is both. However, I decided I just can't sit back and let crap like this go past me without saying anything about it. Completely disregarding the obvious logical fallacies in the email, I sent a simple reply:

Just FYI.. I happen to believe in a little thing we have that's guaranteed by our constitution. It's called freedom of religion. That means the freedom of any citizen to worship (or not worship) in any way they see fit, and it's not anyone else's business but their own. What's next? Putting Muslims on a national registry? I've seen it called for already. Making them wear a crescent moon sewn to their lapels to identify them? What's the harm? Maybe we should round them all up and put them into camps so they can't influence good Christians. Let's not forget history, or we will be doomed to repeat it.

‎As I read on another site recently... "There is no 'unless you're a Muslim within X yards of a national tragedy exception' to the free exercise of religion." Get over it, people. This is beneath us. (edited 9/9/2010 at 11:01pm to fix formatting)