BJC's Walker urges broader scope for hearing on radical Islam

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- A Baptist advocate for religious liberty and the
separation of church and state said March 8 that House committee
hearings scheduled later this week on radical Islam should be broadened
to other faiths.

"The implied suggestion that terrorist threats to the American people
result from one religious group is an insult to the millions of
peaceful Muslim American citizens," Brent Walker, executive director of
the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said in a telephone
press conference.

Walker joined experts in law enforcement, civil
rights and Muslim advocacy to criticize Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.),
chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, for a hearing scheduled
March 10 titled "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim
Community and that Community's Response."

Walker, an attorney who
is also an ordained Baptist minister, said he knows a little about how
it feels to be lumped with religious extremists. After the Supreme Court
ruled in favor of a small independent Baptist congregation's right to
hold virulently anti-gay pickets near military funerals, Walker said he
had to remind the media and friends that Baptists like Martin Luther
King, Peter Gomes and Jimmy Carter were more representative of the
denomination than Pastor Fred Phelps and mostly family members that
comprise the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan.

Walker said
the hearing's narrow focus "will send a further message that Muslims
present a greater threat of terrorism than other religions."

"It
would imply that the potential for terrorism from outside of Islam is
not significant enough to merit a hearing," he said. "Highlighting only
one potential so-called breeding ground for terrorism ignores the
reality that other sources of terrorism exist."

"We recognize
that religion is sometimes the impetus for acts of terrorism," Walker
said. "History is replete with examples of the atrocities that human
beings have perpetrated in the name of their particular faith, be it
Islam, Christianity or a host of others."

But Walker said a general equating of terrorism with Islam is "both dangerous and disingenuous."

"It
is a ploy that plays on widespread misunderstanding of Islam, and it
encourages the American people to view extremist outliers in Islam as
representative of the entire faith," he said.

He said the hearing would "set a troubling precedent that could lead to a diminution of everyone's religious liberty."