Originally, I was going to a blog posting with a collections of quick hit thoughts off last night's first game of the NBA Championship Series, but an item in my former newspaper so jarred me when I read it that I had to say something.
Maryland's attorney general, Douglas Gansler, has issued an opinion that people who wear facial coverings for religious purposes can be required to remove them in order to get into courthouses around the state. In order to minimize potential problems, Gansler has suggested, but not required that male and female security officers be available at checkpoints and that a private area be set aside for those whose religion precludes them from removing those coverings in front of a member of the opposite sex.
Gansler, a Democrat from Montgomery County, one of the more liberal areas of the state, said recently that he would consider whether Maryland would recognize any gay marriages performed in other states, so his progressive bonafides appear to be intact.
So, why do this? Yes, Gansler was asked by a sheriff at one of the suburban Washington counties to issue an opinion, but why this opinion? Doesn't he understand that such an opinion only fans the flames of religious intolerance? We're having enough trouble in this country recognizing and understanding differences in people who don't look and act the way we think they should, or did I just imagine that a religious zealot blasted a doctor who performed abortions while the doctor was serving as an usher in his church the other day? Things like this only make tolerance more a dream than a realistic hope.
The funny thing is that this news breaks the day after Barack Obama's speech to an Egyptian audience about ways to bridge the gap between the United States and the Muslim world. Oh, and for the record, Doug Gansler was one of the first and most vocal Obama supporters two years ago. Guess he wasn't listening all that closely, huh?
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