18% of Americans believe that our President is a Muslim. Franklin Graham says this is because Barack Obama's father was a Muslim and that means that in 1961, the newborn baby carried "the seed of Islam" within him. Remember Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for 20 years? Jujitsu is an acceptable form of political combat, I suppose, but attacking the President for being the wrong kind of Christian, then attacking him for being a Muslim seems excessive.

Now, some of my brothers and sisters in Christ are raising a new form of birther question. Can he provide authentication that he was born again?

Obama’s claim of being baptized is presented in the context of discussing the fact that he was not born and baptized a Christian. He describes his Muslim father and grandfather and attendance in a Muslim school as he was growing up. Obama acknowledges that, before he joined Wright’s church, some people regarded him as a Muslim. Wright himself dabbled in Islam before establishing his church, Obama concedes.

Oh my.

Christian faith, by a sort of reverse mental transubstantiation, becomes simple tribalism, then a method of exclusion and attack. Requiring faith within a "Christian nation" has to eventually go to some process of proving one's faith.

Does he mumble the correct sort of incantation? Are the words said in the right order? Was he Baptized using water?

The preoccupation with the right sort of private belief is not applied exclusively to President Obama. A theological cannibalism parallels the Republican race to extremism. Right wing religious groups urge real Christians to stay away from Glenn Beck. His message of exclusion and bigotry are okay. His attacks on the President for hating white people are okay. But he is a Mormon, and those people are not really Christians. Ann Coulter is not a real Christian because she spoke to a group of gay conservatives. She seems to care more about speaking fees than considering the critical question: Who does Jesus hate?

The old story has a virulent argument about faith ending with a proposal to agree to disagree. "You worship God in your way. I'll worship Him in His."

One day we will live in a country in which Muslims are accepted as are Catholics or Mormons or Jews or any other faith or non-faith.

We are not there yet.

• The World of Doorman-Priest tells of conservatives who target a Muslim community in Britain for protests. Muslims in Bradford respond to the provocation with yawns.

• Gwendolyn Barry with New Global Myth recalls her life as a cab driver and offers a new perspective on the latest hate violence, this time against a Muslim cabbie.

• Slant Right's John Houk suggests that "Islamophobia" is an out of date leftist term. Some of us object to painting a group or religion as evil because of examples of evil members. But John knows Muslims are evil because he has examples of evil Muslims. You know, I warned John of the dangers of lead in drinking water, but he wouldn't listen. See what happens? Fortunately, there are no other conservatives who think like that. Right?

• Right. Chuck Thinks Right notes that Jerry Springer likes Obama and, with Chuck logic, concludes that those who like Obama must be Jerry Springer. You know, I warned Chuck's momma of the dangers of home schooling, but she wouldn't listen. See what happens?

• David Everitt-Carlson of The Wild Wild East Dailies in Vietnam concludes America is based on illusions. I dunno. I think of them as unrealized dreams.

• Ned Williams at WisdomIsVindicated notes that Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman has acknowledged that he is gay. Ned draws an ambiguous conclusion.

• James Wigderson is shocked to see a union activist endorse Senator Russ Feingold (R-WI) because she is a registered lobbyist. Working people are a special interest, you know.

• Manifesto Joe of Texas Blues is in awe at Republican preoccupation with a Presidential vacation.

• Nancy Hanks at The Hankster gets into southern blues with the late Stevie Ray Vaughn.

• Tim McGaha at Tim's Thoughtful Spot develops a fascinating look at history as he crunches numbers from the 1860 census.

• Jack Jodell, friend of the working blogger, at THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON POST ghostwrites a speech for progressives.

Have a safe weekend. Pray for someone in pain. A jobs bill would be good about now.

It is hard to find an answer in the shock of the news, even two days later. How are we to deal with the brutal knife attack on a New York cab driver? Apparently the violence was caused by no more than friendly answers to questions about his Muslim faith. Are you a Muslim? Are you observing Ramadan? How long have you been in the United States?

The questions and casual answers were said to have been followed by silence, then cursing, and finally the ironic scream of a traditional Muslim greeting of peace, "Assalamu alaikum" and a shouted "consider this a checkpoint." The violence was nearly fatal, according to medical reports.

All things, these days, seem to lead to the 9/11 attacks. A lazy xenophobia associates all of Islam to the deaths of those innocents. The soft background prejudices that hibernate so near the surface are awakened into harsh intolerance. It happened after Pearl Harbor. It happens now.

I remember my college aged daughter weeping with me by telephone the afternoon of September 11, 2001. Her close friends and classmates on campus near DC waited for news of fathers, mothers, siblings who worked in or near the Pentagon. Her voice choked back tears as she asked the perennial human question, "How could anyone be so cruel?"

It was a question we struggled with again as some of those same friends, anxiety having turned to grief, stayed off the streets of Washington, fearful because they would be recognized as Muslim or Arab, or might be mistaken as such. It is a question we need to ask this week, as innocent people are targeted once more. False kinship is claimed. False guilt is assumed. Victims become "us". Perpetrators become "they." Look what "they" did to "us."

Plans for the Islamic Center in New York did not begin in controversy. People across the ideological spectrum treated it as an opportunity to demonstrate the unfailing tolerance of modern America. It was a thumb in the eye of al Qaeda. Talk hatred all you want. American Muslims will demonstrate a solidarity with the rest of the nation against radical elements who claim to speak for Islam. All of America will speak truth to cowardly extremism. We welcome the religious diversity that you fear.

But a few saw opportunity in latent bigotry, and small flames fanned into a contrived controversy. al Qaeda now scores the propaganda victory. To some in other lands, the blood libel that America's war is against all of Islam, instead of being exposed as the lie it is, becomes confirmed as fact.

How are we to react to this newest violence? Perhaps, weary as most of us become at the unending task, we might continue pointing out what, in a better world, would be obvious: That the perpetrator of the violence against a Muslim cabdriver does not speak for America; that a fringe group of Islamic radicals does not speak for all of Islam; that they do not speak for the smaller Sunni part of Islam, that they do not speak for Arabs, or those who wear traditional garb of any of a number of religions.

That countries, ethnic groups, and religions are too diverse to merit such group condemnation. That evil is not color coded. That each child of God has an intrinsic worth, a value to be welcomed and cherished. That this value that cannot be defaced under the cover of darkness, the darkness of group hatred. That a human being cannot be reduced to a symbol.