Blog from the Capital highlights that, despite the White House’s stated position in support of freedom of religion, the Bush Administration has not yet condemned the anti-Muslim letter written by Republican Representative Virgil Goode of Virginia (permalink to post "White House Silence on Goode and Prager"). Though I think this this post misses the mark and veers off topic in regards to Syria, Iran and Iraq, it shows that President Bush is indeed willing to tolerate religious prejudice (a position that would seem to contradict the spirit of ending faith-based discrimination that led in part to the creation his fledgling Faith-Based Initiatives – see page 4 of this .pdf document from the White House entitled Protecting the Civil Rights and Religious Liberty of Faith Based Organizations).
And from the Huffington Post, Cenk Uygur edits part of Representative Goode’s letter to replace all references to Muslims with references to Jews:
"If American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position
on immigration there will likely be many more Jews elected to office
… I fear that in the next century we will have many more Jews in the
United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I
believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to
the United States of America."
Of course, Goode’s letter was about Muslims, not Jews. If Representative Goode wrote this letter about Jews (or Catholics, or most any other group), he would have been rightfully forced to resign his office by an overwhelming tidal wave of indignant outrage. But since he was writing about Muslims, our nation and political establishment yawns and shrugs its shoulders. How about that for institutionalized prejudice?
The Lutheran Zephyr 