As you can expect, a great deal of outrage has been generated by this. In fairness to those individuals who posted it, it should be noted that this post is widely sourced from a variety of conservative "news" sites.
A couple minutes of Google checking uncovered the facts. I responded to the post:
This would be truly awful if it were true. Thankfully, it isn't.
1. The complaint was filed by Sikhs, not by Muslims.
2. Long-standing Illinois law, not Sharia law, was the basis of the complaint.
3. One of the foundations of the Sikh religion is tolerance.
Radical fundamentalist extremism had nothing to do with this issue.
4. The face must be exposed on any photo ID under Illinois law. A Muslim woman is permitted to wear a head covering for her photograph, but not a face covering.
Please check things out before posting. Don't be gullible. The more awful, terrible and shocking something sounds, the less likely it is to be true. And I can't help but wonder before I end this brief post, who's the fundamentalist extremist bigot?
The corollary to, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't.":
ReplyDelete"If it sounds too bad to be true, it probably isn't."
A couple of days later, the poster apologized and thanked those who had pointed out his error in comments. I had not commented directly to his original post, but did respond to the apology:
ReplyDeleteYou aren't the only one to fall for an internet hoax. Be kind to yourself (and more careful in the future). If you forgive yourself, we'll forgive you, too! The only people I regard as my intellectual enemies are those who refuse to admit they were wrong in the face of hard, cold facts. Being wrong from time to time is part of being human. Correcting yourself is part of being a good, decent human being.