"... there is a problem with Islam..."

Trump is feeling some heat over "...there is a problem with Islam..."

So, lets put it into context by starting with something less controversial, "There is a problem with Christianity."

Somehow, one statement is judged (by US judges) as an obvious fact, and the other is judged (by the same US judges) as racist. When someone says there is a problem with Christianity, most think of decades of Popes hiding the child-molesting priests in their midst, instead of turning them over and pushing for the maximum penalty under the law (after all, the victims of the priests were Christians too).

So, hiding child molesters and providing them with easy access to more victims is a serious problem, and when decades of Popes ignored it and tried to hide it from the public, it only made it worse and tainted the religion. The number of priests molesting children is tiny, likely inline with molesters in any other occupation, but by ignoring it and hiding it and providing the molesters with cover, the church appeared to endorse it, and their shroud of secrecy around it made it seem much more wide-spread than it was.

But what's worse is what's happening in Islam. It's preachers, or imams, are actively recruiting for ISIS. Yes, ISIS members were talked into it by Islam's version of a preacher. Almost all were recruited through Islamic places of worship. Almost all of ISIS fighters are convinced that they are fighting a religious war against non-believers. Now, the numbers of these preacher/recruiters are small, but what's being ignored and hidden and forbidden from being discussed is the elephant in the room, and it is orders of magnitude a bigger problem than some children being molested... and shielding child molesters was nearly big enough to destroy the church.

"...There is a problem in Islam..."

Its preachers and scholars are powerful recruiters of terrorists and, just like with Christianity, their main victims are their fellow believers. It should be repeated here that, just like with the child-molesting priests, the number of imams that are ISIS recruiters here is 'small', but the deaths they cause are disproportionately large.

Shias are too often taught by their imams that killing a Sunni or Kurd or Christian or Jew is the best way to serve God. Too often, Sunnis are taught almost the same thing. Palestinian children are taught that the greatest gift to God is to murder a Jew. The level of 'Islamic' sponsored/endorsed murder strictly on the basis of religion is the main problem in Islam, and it causes the deaths of tens of thousands of mostly fellow Muslims every year. That's orders of magnitude worse than a few hundred molestations and it's made far worse by ignoring it. Taking a life for any reason by almost every other religion is considered a sin.

When gays are thrown off the roof of buildings, those doing the shoving believe they are following the will of their God, because their religious leaders said so. When a suicide bomber blows up a school for girls, they do it to honor their God because a religious leader told them that girls being taught is a blasphemy before God. There's video of them quoting the Koran as justification before blowing themselves up. The terrorists clearly believe they are doing God's will and they clearly believe they are the true voice of Islam. They are not picking targets for military advantages, but religious ones. When a school full of Christian girls is taken hostage and they are given out or sold as sex slaves, there is a religious ruling by religious leaders legitimizing it on the basis of the religious beliefs of the girls and sections of the Koran are quoted as proof of its legality.

In all of the 'banned' countries, polling suggest well over 70 percent consider the use of suicide bombings against civilians of any 'other' religion or sect 'justified' by the Koran. This isn't something they came up with on their own after hours of deep thought, it was taught to them from a young age and vomited up out of reflex like others memorize the ten commandments. That is a real problem that will not simply go away by ignoring it and pretending it doesn't exist. It can only be fixed by addressing it often, addressing it repeatedly, and addressing it publicly. Like a nail, it has to be pounded on the head as often as it takes to drive it in, there's no polite, PC way to do it. The church had to be humiliated and shamed into halting their practice of protecting molesters. The same, unfortunately, may be required with Islam.

It should be noted that it used to be legal in the US to murder Mormons just because of their religion, so the problem with Islam is not unique and it is not exclusive to Islam. In fact, most religions were like this hundreds of years ago, in The Dark Ages. But Islam is the last major religion to hold onto and condone the murder of other religions or sects based entirely on their beliefs. Condoning, in this case, may be rightly implied by the complete lack of outrage over suicide bombers, honor killings, stoning women, or gays being tossed off roofs, contrasted against the literal burning down of towns over a cartoon and the murder of entire Christian families over rumors that they 'might' have insulted the Koran.

This is the kind of problem that is made much much worse when ignored.

Ignoring child-molesting priests made it look like the Pope endorsed it, and that code of silence made a simple law enforcement problem into a religious coverup. Ignoring the fact that ('some') imams and religious scholars are the primary recruiters for terrorists is making it look, sound, and feel like Islam endorses and condones terrorists, and Islam's continued refusal to turn over and evict these recruiters from their ranks can and will be used as evidence that 'the pope endorses child-molesting preachers' and 'Islam endorses terrorism in the name of Islam'.

The world is waiting for the day that murdering gays because they are gay will engender the same level of outrage in Islam that the publishing of a cartoon currently does, but we all know that day is decades away ... if it comes at all. And we're not even touching on honor killings yet.

There is a problem with Islam that only Islam can solve, and Islam MUST solve it soon. Muslims must address it loudly, often, and repeatedly, it must stop making excuses and stop blindly ignoring what the rest of the world sees. It must decide to hold all life sacred, not just their particular sect. Because it is dangerously out of hand right now and, if allowed to persist, all the solutions available from outside Islam look a lot like WWIII, and nobody really wants that.

This 'God wants you to murder unbelievers' has been dropped by all other major religions and, for the most part, has been dropped by Islam inside the US. There is a path here for Islam to follow, but time is running out.

Calling people racist for pointing this out is as stupid and counter-productive as the Pope calling people racists for daring to suggest that even one priest ever raped a child.

We have given Islam a pass for 15 years, we have walked around on egg shells for fear of offending. We have pretended that there is no problem in the hopes that ignoring it will make it go away. And like a Pope that never felt any criticism over child-molestation, the leaders in Islam decided to ignore it too.

That let AlQuida become ISIS and a caliphate was born.

It may be time for some shaming.

It may be time to paint all Christian preachers as molesters, and all imams as ISIS recruiters until such time as they are shamed into getting a grip on the problem they are so desperate to ignore.

It may be time for some humiliating and some verbal bullying and a lot of uncomfortable, politically incorrect words.

It may be time to let Trump be Trump and put the bully back in the pulpit. More coddling and ignoring and pretending that their isn't a problem simply isn't going to work. And being afraid to offend Islam... well, Islam NEEDS to be offended by what ISIS is doing in its name, but it doesn't seem to be. Islam NEEDS to be offended when gays are tossed off roofs in its name, but few imams preach against it. Islam needs to be offended by stoning women for walking home with a man not related to them, in its name, but so far nothing. Islam needs to be offended every time a suicide bomber quotes the Koran before murdering, but instead statues and portraits go up in the bomber's honor. Islam need to be offended by things done in its name instead of by the names it gets called.

...there is a problem with Islam...