My column for today:
Despite their negative views toward Islam, other polls show that most Americans think American Muslims are patriotic and hardworking, and a majority of Americans in the Pew poll still support the right of Muslims to build houses of worship wherever they want even if their neighbors object. That's good, because one of the things Muslims can do both to stem domestic radicalization and calm American anxieties about Islam is to build more mosques. A recent joint study conducted by professors at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill showed that mosques can be a deterrent to domestic terrorism. This isn't mere coincidence but design -- the Duke-UNC study found that following the September 11 attacks, Muslim leaders made serious, sustained efforts to combat radicalism. Muslim Americans, the Duke-UNC report says, adopted numerous internal self-policing practices to prevent the growth of radical ideology in their communities.
One final point. It doesn't surprise me that Muslims voted for Republicans in large numbers in the past. If you're an observant Muslim, you're likely socially conservative in many ways. But sometime in the near future, when al-Qaeda is largely an afterthought, and the religiously motivated competition for converts between Islam and Christianity dies down, I think conservative American Muslims and conservative American Christians are going to find themselves on the same side, and American liberals will find themselves on the opposite one.
