This past week, Sen. Trent Lott, of Mississippi, resigned as Majority Leader of the Senate. At a 100th birthday celebration for Sen. Strom Thurmond, Lott proclaimed that our country would be better today if Thurmond's 1948 presidential platform with its blatant segregationist policies had prevailed. It took a few days for the story to break, but when it did, Lott became damaged goods.

For several days, Lott steadfastly refused to step down. Out of desperation, he soon began to waffle. He even promised to support policies like affirmative action that he had always strenuously opposed. Yet Lott finally realized that he had no choice but to vacate his leadership post.

Lott's resignation is significant for two reasons. First, the Republican party feared that Lott's remarks would alienate potential black voters. Among many blacks, there is the perception that the Republican party has become the haven for the racists who switched from the Democratic party. Lott's comments seemed to reinforce that perception. Therefore, his own party members had to condemn them publicly to prevent further deterioration of the Republican image.

But even more significant is that fact that the American people no longer are willing to tolerate bigotry. The “N” word is now strictly taboo. Organizations that still persist in discriminating, on the basis of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, risk losing prestige, clout, and financial support.

Yet there is one painful exception to all that I have just said. Many right-wing Christian leaders are now spreading obscenities about the faith of Islam and seem to be getting away with it. Probably the most virulent defamer of Islam is Franklin Graham, the son of the famed evangelist, Billy Graham. Graham repeatedly charges that the Muslim religion is “wicked, violent, and not of the same God.” He argues that the Koran sanctions hating and killing people who are not Muslim.

He tries to prove his misguided contention by citing verses from the Koran, which he insists he is not quoting out of context. However, unless Graham has made a thorough and comprehensive study of the Koran in the original Arabic, and not in an English translation, he has no right to judge its contents. To do so is not only irresponsible but also dangerous.

He believes that Christians must clearly show that Christianity is superior to Islam. Graham disagrees with those who claim that Muslims worship that same God as Christians, but do so in a different way. He insists that it is not the same God. He admits that the Muslims do recognize Jesus, but they don't acknowledge Jesus' divine nature. They even take a few excerpts from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament and throw them into the Koran to give it validity.

But the bottom line, according to Graham, is that the Koran is not the word of God. Only the Holy Bible is the word of God. When asked to modify or retract his accusations against Islam, Graham has steadfastly refused, for fear that he would be compromising his principles. Instead, he repeats his foul claim that Islam is evil.

Poisonous words about Islam, like Graham's, also spew forth from the mouths of other prominent evangelists, like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and even John Hagee. Sadly, few Americans have condemned them. But some may ask: “Why should we condemn them?” Let me attempt to answer that question.

Last Monday morning, Lynn and I, together with several family members, visited Ground Zero in New York. There at that tragic site, we painfully contemplated the devastation which the 19 terrorists wreaked on September 11, 2001. We are well aware that all 19 were Muslims. They hoped to enter Paradise by destroying these tall edifices of Western capitalism and the men and women who occupied them.

We are also aware that all the homicide bombers of scores of our innocent brothers and sisters in Israel are Muslim. They sincerely believe that their heinous actions represent the will of Allah. Further distressing is the fact that few, if any, Muslim religious leaders have openly disapproved of these atrocities. Should we therefore not conclude from these facts that the Muslim faith is grossly hateful and evil? Absolutely not!

We can not always judge a noble religion by its ignoble practitioners, just as we can not judge a Beethoven symphony by a fifth-rate orchestra that plays it. The Beethoven symphony remains a classic of musical artistry, in spite of the inferior instrumentalists who attempt to interpret it.

Rabbi Irving Greenberg once advised that it doesn't matter which movement in Judaism you belong to, as long as you are ashamed of it. Let me extend that to a broader context. Every one of the three major world religious communities, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, contains elements which should cause shame, because of hostility against other religious groups. The Roman Catholic community certainly should not be proud of John of Capistrano. This Church leader came to Krakow, Poland, to speak hatred and incite pogroms against the Jews. Yet he was canonized as a saint of the Church. In fact, one of the four missions in San Antonio is named in John of Capistrano's memory.

Protestants also should recoil from the vile sentiments of Martin Luther. Luther wrote a pamphlet he called, On Jews and Their Lies. In it, he told his readers: “Know, Christians, that next to the devil, you have no enemy, more cruel, more venomous, and more violent than a true Jew.” Closer to us in time are the scores of Christian clergymen in Nazi Germany who were staunch supporters and advocates for Hitler.

Even we Jews are not exempt from bigotry. We need to be ashamed of Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who claimed to be a religious Jew. Yet this fanatical Brooklyn physician massacred almost two dozen Muslim worshippers at prayer at the sacred site where our patriarchs and matriarchs are buried in Hebron.

We also can not be proud of Yigal Amir, who, in the name of Judaism, assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Amir considered Rabin's willingness to trade land for peace to be a mortal sin. And what about those yeshivot today where students erroneously learn that the Gentile soul is less pure than the Jewish soul? And what about those of us who consider ourselves religious, but continue to spout racist words like Shevartzer and Shegetz?

Therefore Franklin Graham and those of his ilk should realize Islamic leaders do not have a monopoly on hatred of the other. We all bear some of this stain. The plague is on all of our houses.

If you look hard enough, you can find evidence of hostility to outsiders in all of our Scriptures. But you can also find many more sublime and uplifting passages. For example, in our Hebrew Bible, in Deuteronomy 7, God orders the Israelites, upon entering the Promised Land, to wipe out every man, woman and children among the seven pagan nations. Yet that same Hebrew Bible teaches us to treat the stranger kindly and lovingly and to look forward to the day when God's house will be a house of prayer for all peoples.

The New Testament contains verses that speak of Jews as a brood of vipers and mentions a synagogue of Satan. Yet, other passages, like the Sermon on the Mount, emphasize love and caring. Similarly, Islamic scholars do acknowledge the darker side of the Koran. Yet its central message is wholesome and positive.

Fortunately, President Bush has distanced himself from Graham's defamation. He asserts that Islam is a religion that preaches peace and that the terrorists do not represent what Islam teaches. In short, the Islam of Osama bin Laden is not true Islam, but a gross perversion of it.

I regret that our national Jewish organizations have been relatively silent as this anti-Muslim hostility mounts. They issue a multitude of position papers on a wide variety of social injustices, but have said little about this one. But why should it concern us?

First of all, we Jews owe a debt of gratitude to the Muslims. We must never forget that one of the most creative and fertile periods of Jewish life took place in Spain and other lands where Muslims held sway. The Golden Age of Jewish poetry, philosophy, and literature flourished under Muslim sovereignty.

But, more important, it is in our self-interest to fight this anti-Islamic menace. Bigotry against any group is not only morally reprehensible but is also bad for Jews. Hatred spreads like a malignancy beyond its original target. Who can assure us that those preachers who defame Islam will not eventually begin to malign Judaism and other religions as well? Indeed, bigotry knows no boundaries.

Our task then is to object to anti-Muslim sentiment, wherever we encounter it- whether in daily conversation or in the media. And let God be the ultimate Judge of which religions are correct and not allow misguided members of the clergy to rob God of that prerogative. Amen.

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