Islam is a religion

What! What? You mean it is not a cult or an ideology or a way of life? That is what Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey wondered aloud at a campaign stop a few months ago when asked if Muslim should have the right to build a house of worship in Murfreesboro. He said he supports the first amendment but wondered if if applied to Muslims because, you see, Islam might not really be a religion.

Hundreds of bloggers and chatters, more adamantly than Ramsey, have been saying the same thing, declaring that Muslim Americans are not eligible for the same First Amendment Freedom of Religion as other Americans. All we have to do to deny them their First Amendment rights is to decide that the Muslim faith is not a religion.

As nutty as that sounds, it has been gaining ground. I have heard otherwise perfectly sane people make that argument to me. In Rutherford county, opponents of the planned mosque filed suit against Rutherford County officials, accusing the county of improperly giving notice of the meeting at which the construction of the Mosque was approved, claiming the Planning Commission violated the sunshine law. The lawsuit also argues that Islam is not a real religion, but instead a political movement.

Today, the U. S. Justice Department has joined the debate and said that Islam is a valid religion. I welcome the U. S. Justice Department filing a brief in this case. If every local government gets to decide which religion is a real religion, there are parts of Baptist East Tennessee where, I suspect, Roman Catholicism would be declared not to be a real religion. I suspect that the Church of Scientology, Jehovah’s Witness, and Mormon’s would also not make the grade of “real” religions.

In their brief filed in the case, the Department of Justice said, “Every court addressing the question has treated Islam as a religion for purposes of the First Amendment and other federal laws. No court has held otherwise. Islam falls plainly within the understanding of a religion for constitutional and other federal legal purposes…”

OK, so this faith, which is one of the big three monotheistic religions, practices by 23% of the world’s population or about 1.57 billion people may really be a religion after all? It is if you believe the U. S. Justice Department.

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