Interfaith Alliance call for ‘restoration of civility’

Responding to Nazi- and Holocaust-baiting by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land and others, a group of prominent faith leaders led by Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance called in an open letter for restoration of civility to public debate.

The letter gave four examples of “divisive and ill-spirited rhetoric:”

• Land, SBC ethics & religious liberty chief, “compared some of the proposed health care reforms to ”what the Nazis did.” Actually, Land bestowed a “Joseph Mengele Award” on Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the president’s chief health care adviser. After strong criticism, Dr. Land apologized for his comments, though he offered no apology to Dr. Emanuel.”
• The Republican National Committee was asked to take down a link to a YouTube video parody whose subtitles were doctored to suggest Hitler was criticizing Democratic health care proposals.
• “Fox News host Glenn Beck comparedv Obama Administration treatment of Fox News to the fate of the Jews during the Holocaust.”
• Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) calling the current health care crisis “a holocaust,” although he later apologized in a letter to the Anti-Defamation League.

It said:

The Holocaust was a tragic event in which the Nazis systematically murdered six million Jews. The Nazi regime that perpetrated this mass genocide was one of the most horrific in world history. There is no place in civil debate for the use of these types of metaphors. Perpetrators of such language harm rather than help both the integrity of the democratic process and the credibility of religious commentary.

We, the undersigned faith leaders, call on our colleagues in all religious communities as well as elected leaders, commentators, pundits and others engaged in public debate to refrain specifically from using inappropriate Nazi and Holocaust references and, generally, to help restore civility to our national dialogue.

Signing the letter were:

• The Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president, Interfaith Alliance
• Imam Mahdi Bray, executive director, Muslim American Society Freedom
• Rev. Dr. David Currie, Texas Baptist Denominational Leader, Retired
• The Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon, former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington
• Rabbi David Gelfand, senior rabbi of Temple Israel of the City of New York
• Rev. Galen Guengerich, senior minister, All Souls Unitarian Church
• Dr. Derrick Harkins, senior pastor, Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, Washington, D.C.
• Dr. Maureen McCormack, SL, Sisters of Loretto
• Rabbi Jack Moline, rabbi of Agudas Achim Congregation
• Rev. Peter Morales, president, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
• Rev. Meg Riley, director, Advocacy and Witness Programs, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
• The Rev. Dr. Daniel Rosemergy, minister, Greater Nashville Unitarian Universalist Congregation
• Rabbi David Saperstein, director and counsel, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
• Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed,
  national director, Office for Interfaith & Community Alliances, Islamic Society of North America
• The Rev. Dr. Herbert D. Valentine, founding president, Interfaith Alliance