Xenophobia certainly won't help the world

Lawmaker’s ‘xenophobic’ comments spark row Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20061225/world.htm#1

A Virginia Republican lawmaker has lashed out at America's first Muslim member of Congress for preferring to use a Quran during a ceremonial swearing-in service and has warned Americans that if they "don't wake up" many more Muslims will be elected to Congress.
Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr.'s xenophobic comments, made in a letter to constituents, have touched off a firestorm as Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, prepares to make his debut in the U.S. Congress next month.
"The Muslim Representative [Mr. Ellison] from Minnesota was elected by the voters of the district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration, there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran," Mr. Goode warned in the letter.
"We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country."
He added: "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims 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 and to prevent our resources from being swamped."
Mr. Ellison is a devout Muslim who prays five times a day and reportedly says he has not eaten pork or had a drink of alcohol since he converted to Islam as a 19-year-old student at Wayne State University in Detroit.
The U.S. Constitution says nothing about swearing on the Bible. Newly elected members of Congress raise their right hands and are sworn in together by the Speaker of the House. While no religious texts are used for the official swearing-in ceremony, some members have carried an expanded Bible that included the Book of Mormon, and even a Torah.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has expressed shock at the lack of criticism from the Republican Party of Mr. Goode's anti-Muslim remarks.
Meanwhile, Democrats, who won control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress in midterm elections on November 7, have chastised Mr. Goode.
Sen. Robert J. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, called Mr. Goode's statement "an attack on the sanctity of religious freedom that all Americans are guaranteed under the Constitution" and asked him to apologise.
On Friday, the Washington Post slammed Mr. Goode in an editorial titled "A Bigot in Congress." "Bigotry comes in various guises -- some coded, some closeted, some colossally stupid," the Post said.
"The bigotry displayed recently by Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., a Republican who represents a patch of south-central Virginia, falls squarely in the third category. Mr. Goode, evidently in a state of xenophobic delirium, went on a semi-public tirade against the looming peril and corrupting threat posed by Muslim immigration to the United States."
CAIR's national legislative director Corey Saylor said Republican leaders in Virginia should have learned a lesson in tolerance from the controversy over Sen. George Allen's "macaca" episode. While on the midterm election trail Mr. Allen called his opponent James H. Webb's Indian American campaign volunteer a "macaca" -- the word is considered a racial slur in some cultures. Mr. Allen lost his re-election bid largely due to the controversy generated by his remark.
The Post editorial contended: "the real worry for the nation is that the rest of the world might take Mr. Goode seriously, interpreting his biased remarks about Muslims as proof that America really has embarked on a civilizational war against Islam." Mr. Goode has refused to apologise for his letter.