REP. VIRGIL GOODE, a Republican who represents Virginia's
Eschewing damage control, Mr. Goode has refused to retract a letter to constituents warning that unless the United States tightens immigration, "many more Muslims" will gain elective office. This, he apparently believes, is a ghastly prospect. Mr. Goode's Web site features a "Kids' Corner." What does he tell children about the founding of America by religious dissenters?
The congressman appeared on Fox News the other day to say that most constituent feedback has been positive. But even if many 5th District voters dislike Muslims, Mr. Goode's duty isn't to pick up a torch and run to the front of the mob.
In response to this xenophobic braying, Rep. Jim Moran, D-8th, who himself has hit many potholes on the road to enlightenment, suggests that adding more Muslim Americans to the political process "is a goal, not something to be avoided." Certainly ghettoizing Muslims politically or in any other fashion is, as some European nations have learned, a recipe for trouble.
Mr. Goode became the nativists' man of the hour when he condemned the plans of Minnesota Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, a native-born Democrat who embraced Islam in college, to swear his oath of office on the Quran rather than the Bible. But we don't all share the same religion, so we don't all share the same "good book."
Mr. Goode's views hardly align with the "values and beliefs traditional to the United States" that he claims to be championing or, for that matter, his own professed Christian faith. WWJD? Not blacklist according to creed.
To say it once more, the United States is a great nation not in spite of, but because of, its diversity. What a pity that Mr. Goode doesn't grasp that.