Religious leaders condemn growing Islamophobia

Leaders of some three dozen mainstream U.S. religious denominations Tuesday condemned what many commentators have called a rising tide of Islamophobia touched off by the recent controversy over the construction of a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan, two blocks from the site of the twin World Trade Center towers destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. "As religious leaders in this great country, we have come together in our nation's capitol to denounce categorically the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry being directed against America's Muslim community," the group declared in a statement. "We are profoundly distressed and deeply saddened by the incidents of violence committed against Muslims in our community, and by the desecration of Islamic houses of worship," the statement continued, adding, "We stand by the principle that to attack any religion in the United States is to do violence to the religious freedom of all Americans." The group, which included national leaders of the Muslim and Jewish communities, as well as from the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches, singled out the threat by one Florida church to publicly burn copies of the Qu'ran to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The planned burning, which the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen.David Petraeus, warned Monday could endanger the lives of U.S. troops there and in Iraq, "is a particularly egregious offense that demands the strongest possible condemnation by all who value civility in public life and seek to honor the sacred memory of those who lost their lives on September 11," the inter-religious group said.