America’s Moral Compass

People with a conservative Muslim background generally believe that the West has lost its moral compass over the last 50 years.

In support of this proposition they cite out of wedlock children raised by single parents, and pre and extra martial sex and the spread of STD including HIV/AIDS. They also look at Western fashions that bare too much female flesh as being an incitement to barely licit sex.

They also cite the gay rights movement and gay marriage as issues that threaten to destroy whatever family values still remain. Gays are an abomination to God in their eyes.

Western societies also condone pornography that promotes lascivious and hedonistic values including sodomy. Western societies also condone Abortion, which is culturally legally defined as a right of privacy, but not rooted in marriage.

Today Americans talk about spreading democracy around the world. America and Europe are not simply democratic societies, but they are also open societies that are generally free of government censorship of culture.

Thomas Friedman writing in the New York Times states that in the heart of Europe, a short distance from the Eiffel Tower grew up 2 young Muslim girls born and raised in France. They instead of embracing French culture, embraced the Islamic culture of their Egyptian and Tunisian parents, head Scarves, and shuttle cock burqa. They prefer to watch Al-Jazeera, rather than French TV which they do not believe. The person they admired most in the world was Osama bin Laden, because he was defending Islam. That suicide "martyrdom" was justified because there was no greater glory than dying in defense of Islam, that they saw themselves as Muslims first and French citizens last, and that all their friends felt pretty much the same.

Sexual freedom goes to the heart of international diplomacy. If you cannot have Sex with people from other cultures and civilizations how will you ever learn anything? How will your closed civilization ever progress without exposure to new ideas and people? I freely admit to having learned something from a number of European cultures simply by dating.

The real soul of the culture of the West is best exemplified in the evangelical movie The Passion, directed by Mel Gibson. Believe it or not but Christianity is very much alive. Belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ exists. Just look at President Bush, who is a born again Christian. It is the faith that holds that Jesus Christ suffered for the sins of all humanity on the cross that guides the West. After all, if you have faith in the mercy of Jesus Christ, you can commit the sins of the pleasures of the flesh and expect forgiveness. Even prostitutes can be forgiven along with all other criminals because Jesus Christ has already paid the price.

Western societies with their emphasis on individual rights and freedoms, are seen by Muslim conservatives as decadent and corrupted, far from God’s grace. I strongly disagree.

I am an American Muslim and I can tell you it is a far better man who can resist temptation than one who is never exposed to it at all. The West has achieved the perfect balance of freedom. It gives you clear moral choices everyday that you live in a free society. It is up to the individual believer to follow God’s commandments and not for the State to enforce moral choices.

If you look beneath the surface of America and Europe’s open societies you will find total freedom of conscience and Free exercise of religion, including the right to preach which is denied to non-Muslims in Pakistan and the rest of the Islamic world. Even atheism has its place. The point is that these are the terms of the social compact that governs that community’s political and spiritual life. Blasphemy is not a cognizable offense in America, where Free Speech and Freedom of the press are considered more important, that is a legacy of Martin Luther’s Reformation. For it was through the power of the Press that Martin Luther’s ideas about the Catholic Church were disseminated, its power challenged, and its monopoly on religion and its interpretation finally broken. Needless to say Martin Luther did not feel the need to be polite in expressing his deepest convictions in writing.

Now the real question is whether this social compact is an improvement upon Islam’s social compact or not. I must say that in comparing the two, I can only repeat that I believe in Freedom, as much as George W. Bush does. The Western social contract is far more tolerant and fair than the Islamic social contract rooted in 7th century notions of intolerance. It is time people like me were heard to speak this truth that being Muslims we much prefer the freedom of the West to the culturally barren landscape of the Islamic world. We prefer Sexual license to so-called ’honor killings’, Free Speech, Apostasy and blasphemy to blasphemy and apostasy laws, drunkenness to Prohibition, and abortion rights to unwanted children.