Radicalization and religion is a topic that is thrown around a lot in today's politics and on social media. Donald Trump has made it a key point of his campaign to attack the religion of Islam and claim Muslims need extra monitoring. Likewise, Republicans have been drawing the link between Islam and terrorists by using the phrase "Radical Islam." On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have avoided using the term "Radical Islam" to not link terrorists with the billions of peaceful Muslims in the U.S. and world. President Barack Obama addressed this very point during a speech in June 2016 after the Orlando nightclub attack (see attached video).
There is a very real war against extremist terrorists around the world who twist the tenants of Islam to fit their narrative of why they want to kill people and establish their own autonomous state in the Middle East. But religion is something that is like air — it has been all around humanity for centuries — and just because Muslims don't fit the stereotype of white Christian Americans, they are seen as different and "part of the problem." Religion isn't the problem. ISIS kills more Muslims than anything There are many countries around the world with a majority Muslim population that in some ways are more progressive than the U.S. in some ways. An example of this is Malaysia (a majority Muslim country), where there are more women in government positions than the U.S.
Religious rights for everyone must be protected at all costs, and religion must not be linked to terrorists if we are ever going to win a war against extremism.
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