Muslim Americans are our neighbors, coworkers and fellow citizens. They are entitled to the same full place in our national community as every other American.
Yet Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) has said that Islam “does not comport with modern Western thought” and that, when practiced as written, it is “a violent religion.”
That rhetoric is not isolated. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) wrote on X that “Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a trojan horse and a threat to national security and the republic.”
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) likewise posted that “Muslims don’t belong in American society.”
These statements do more than criticize particular ideas or policies. They portray an entire religious community — including families, students and public servants — as inherently suspect and outside the national “we.”
That is precisely the danger Holocaust survivor Herbert C. Kelman warned against in his essay, “Dignity and Dehumanization.”
Kelman wrote: “The central lesson that I have learned from the Holocaust is that we must never allow any people, any human group, to be excluded from our moral community.” For Kelman, a moral community is one in which people recognize obligations to one another.
Public officials should reject language that casts millions of Americans as threats because of their faith and instead affirm the equal dignity and safety of Muslim Americans.
Terry Hansen
Grafton, Wisconsin