Islam is an uplifting, ancient religion, rooted in a search for justice on God's Earth. Diversity is both a Muslim's lived reality (Islam is home to everyone from African Americans to Indonesians to Yemenites) and a goal: "O Mankind!" reads the Quran, Sura 49:13, "We created you ... into nations and tribes, that you may know each other, not that you may despise each other.

...I, like the vast majority of my compatriots, find the nihilistic hatred preached by certain Muslims abhorrent and frightening. But as an American, I was raised to believe that we should judge people by the content of their characters, not the acts of others. I was raised to believe that in this country all are equal, everyone is innocent until proved guilty, and differences are to be respected, not despised.

[ Detroit Free Press ]

I truly appreciate my fellow Americans who can look past the vile hate mongering of the like who commented on this story. If Islam was even 1/2 as bad as the "Anti-Islam" crowd would have us believe, wouldn't we have been in a massive world war for over 1,000 years already? Isn't it more likely that the "problem Muslims" are a very small percentage of the Muslims in the world, just as the hate-filled peoples of other religions of the world?