Orlando - Hold On......Let's Not Take Extremism Out Of Context.

It is becoming clear that religious extremism is behind the nigh club massacre in Orlando. It is also looking like Muslim Extremism was behind this attack.


While Muslim Extremism is primarily a plague in the Middle East, religous extremism has been a plague on the United States. It may come to surprise people that most extremism is practiced by Christians, not Muslims in the United States. Home grown, and more political than people realize, it has been a cancer on our nation and has cleverly been masked as Patriotism since 9/11.

Since Christianity is a majority of our citizens, it is hard to track religious extremism. Tracking of hate crimes can be complicated by Christian acts of violence. For example, the Charleston shooting of 9 African Americans in a church is not considered a hate crime, even though the shooter clearly found motivation from the Bible to commit such acts.

While Muslims are feared in the United States by some, the FBI has tracked 1140 attacks by Christians against Jews in 2014 in the United States. Yet there was 1340 crimes against sexual orientation. I am not sure how the FBI can differentiate between the 2. Most origins of crimes against sexual orientation are motivated by religious upbringing. Either way, one can assume that religious intolerance is a common thread for hate crimes.

What most may not know is that 9/11 led to a series of events that increased fundamental outreach towards children in our public schools. President Bush included with the Patriot Act legislation that allowed schools to have an increase of religious presence. This opened the door to religious clubs and special events like prayers at the flag pole. The goal of the legislation was to loosen the control over public schools regarding the separation of church and state.

What some parents have experienced has been almost as painful as a mass shooting. Unbeknownst to them, Christian Churches have sent youth pastors into schools as teacher assistants and aides. These folks befriend children and often encourage them to attend events. At these events, indoctrination begins and their parents are considered to be "non supportive" participants of the road towards Christ.

Without parents knowing, there have been examples of these groups encouraging high school participants to skip college whereas doubt through higher learning can be a barrier to the road to religious enlightenment.

Most of these examples can be found in the south, and rural areas across the United States. Inner cities have kept restrictions to such events happening, however religious organizations have found a way to inner city children via multiple outlets.

The problem with evangelizing youth is that they will be indoctrinated into believe the Bible is Truth.

When a verse in Leviticus tells you that a man sleeping with a man or a woman sleeping with a woman should lead to death. The young mind will be conditioned to believe this is true. It can happen with adults, but the profile is that it has a stronger impact on children.

There are other examples of religious violence. In Whitesboro New York, a church member was beat to death by his congregation regarding his behavior.  Conservative churches can have strict doctrinal interpretations due to their fear of a church member doubting the teachings of the pastor or the group as a whole. Hundreds of thousands of youth groups bring kids into the fold through clever fun events, only to fall prey to such teachings. It is a very dangerous recruitment practice happening all over the United States.

The political consequences of returning the balance of separation of church and state can no longer be tolerated by the general electorate. Most religious people can differentiate between personal faith and fundamentalism. What political leaders need to do is enact legislation that greatly restricts the rights of conservative churches to enter public schools with their propaganda. Stricter hiring guidelines are needed for public service positions to filter out religious zealots. Schools need to return to being safe havens for children to learn without religious pressures regarding the path to enlightenment.

Guns are a problem, but one has to remember that during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, fundamentalists used home made devices to kill hundreds of people in churches. There were also over 3000 lynching's a year. Hate finds a way, and guns should not be the blame for our events such as Orlando. Hate finds a way, and it is time for us as a nation to deal with the extremists that promote hate.