Teddy Bears, Parked Cars and Moral Equivalence

The Washington Post online has a religion section called On Faith, which features liberal commentary on various issues relating to religion and public life. Today’s column, “Sudan and Saudi Arabia: Who Speaks for Islam?,” is by John Esposito and John Voll, both of Georgetown. It begins with one of those sentences where the second clause takes away what the first clause asserted:

In a world in which Islamophobes blur the distinction between the barbaric acts of Muslim extremists and terrorists and the religion of Islam, two recent legal decisions in Sudan and Saudi Arabia will reinforce accusations that Islam is an intolerant religion.

So…does that mean that the “Islamophobes” were right after all? Evidently not. But the facts are grim:

After years of civil war and bloodshed and having failed to effectively respond to what some describe as genocide in Darfur, Sudan

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