Feb. 08--After seven years in office, President Barack Obama finally visited a mosque in the United States.
I wonder if it even matters.
I thought the presidential visit last Wednesday might ease the unfounded fears held by many Americans that most Muslims are terrorists. I hoped politicians would put their anti-Muslim attacks on ice for at least a few days to allow the president's message to sink in.
As it turned out, they couldn't even make it through the night.
It would have been nice if people who have never visited a mosque had taken a moment to do what the president suggested in his speech to a roomful of Muslims -- to simply think of it as their own church or synagogue or temple.
What if they had closed their eyes and envisioned the picture the president painted -- of families coming together to worship; of a school where teachers open young minds; of kids playing baseball and football and basketball; of Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts meeting and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Many of us thought there was a chance that Obama's visit to the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque could bring Americans together, just as the president intended. We naively believed that the doubters who questioned the patriotism of Muslim-Americans would give them a chance to become part of the family.
Then Donald Trump and Marco Rubio shoved us back to reality.
This is an election year, and embracing Muslims isn't on the conservative agenda.
The president had barely stepped off Air Force One when Sen. Rubio, one of the Republican front-runners in race for the White House, told supporters at a town hall meeting in Dover, N.H., that Obama's visit to the mosque had, in fact, further divided Americans.
According to the Washington Post, Rubio accused Obama of pitting Americans against one another "along ethnic lines and racial lines and economic lines and religious lines."
"I'm tired of being divided against each other for political reasons like this president's done," he said, according to the Post. "Always pitting people against each other. Always. He's always -- look at today: He gave a speech at a mosque."
According to Rubio, the president implied that America is discriminating against Muslims. But Rubio wanted to make it clear that there's lots of discrimination in America, not just against Muslims. In his opinion, discrimination isn't the most important issue -- the biggest issue is "radical Islam."
"It's this constant pitting people against each other that -- I can't stand that. It's hurting our country badly," he said, according to the Post. "We can disagree on things, right? I'm a Dolphin fan, you're a Patriot fan."
If only it were that simple, Sen. Rubio.
The anti-Muslim sentiment has been so politically polarizing that Obama dared not visit a mosque until the end of his two-term presidency. Though he's a Christian, many Americans insist that the president is a Muslim.
Trump seized an opportunity to promote that misconception on national television.
"I don't know if he's -- maybe he feels comfortable there," Trump told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren on Wednesday night. "We have a lot of problems in this country, Greta, there are a lot of places he can go, and he chose a mosque."
The backlash against Muslim-Americans has been brutal since terrorist attacks, purportedly in the name of Islam, were carried out last year in Paris and San Bernardino. Conservative presidential candidates, including Trump, Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz, have further stirred up fears with angry rhetoric about "radical Islam."
Apparently, that's the kind of president many Americans want.
According to a poll released by the Pew Research Center the day Obama visited the mosque, 40 percent of Americans said they want the next president to speak bluntly about Islamic extremists even if the statements are critical of Islam as a whole.
The survey found that such blunt talk is preferred by two-thirds of Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party, while 70 percent of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic express the opposite view.
The study also shows that roughly half of the public believe that a substantial segment of the U.S. Muslim population is anti-American, including 11 percent who say "most" or "almost all" are and 14 percent who think "about half" are anti-American.
President Obama and many Muslim leaders believe that showing the contributions of Muslims in America can change those attitudes.
They are our police, our firefighters, the president said in his speech. They're in homeland security, in our intelligence community. They serve honorably in our armed forces -- meaning they fight and bleed and die for our freedom, Obama said.
He suggested that television shows should have Muslim characters that are unrelated to national security. Only then, he said, will everyone be considered as one American family.
It's a sensible idea. But no one knows better than President Obama that it won't happen any time soon.
Americans are in the midst of a heated family argument, one that takes place every four years. Politicians won't allow a compromise. There are too many votes at stake.
dglanton@tribpub.com
