Gods love

Sometimes being a member of the media is hard, keeping your own opinions to yourself and covering events without letting your own views get in the way of the stories you are trying to tell. Today was one of those days. I live in a relatively small town called Temecula, sometimes we do have big events, but for the most part its a sleeper community comprised of young family's, retired wine drinkers, and some right wing supporters ( not that being right wing is bad, its just that they tend to be less compassionate to others view points). With those facts the diversity in this town is very meek, so when the Temecula Islamic Center planned to get permits to build their new mosque on land they purchased ten years ago, right next to a baptist church, lets just say it didn't go over to well with all of the less than open minded people who comprise this valley.



So today a group of anti-Islamic protesters set out to ruin the centers Friday prayer services. They attempted to do this by bringing dogs with them, having women dress in reveling clothing and also by having women sing. None of these attempts really came to be for them however. They ended up with two dogs, and maybe about thirty protesters, I was told by one of them "the lack of turn out was do to an Islamic e-mail sabotage that was sent out to trick the protesters into thinking the protest wasn't going to happen".



The low turn out didn't stop them from protesting though, they came out with megaphones, signs, and a few chants. I guess one of them even decided to drive up and down the street shouting profanities at the existing Temecula Islamic Center.
Now I have nothing against protesting, its what makes this country great, you don't like something or someone, grab a badly made cardboard sign and stand on the street corner shouting at other people to let them know how you feel. This group however, was only about one thing, HATE! Hate for a religion they know nothing about. Most of them talked about love, and how much their "God" loved everyone, but really the only true emotion I felt coming from them was hate!



The most interesting thing for me was how on one side of the street there were protesters talking about how evil Islam is, and how all it teaches is how to kill all those who don't believe. Then on the other side of the street were the Islamic supporters sitting very peacefully and then at one point a few of them came over to the anti-Islamic protesters with roses thanking them for coming out to voice their concerns. This is not the image of hate and evil the protesters painted in their signs and words.

After the events of September 11th this country lost a lot, and one of those things we lost was trust, and one of the biggest groups we lost trust in is Islam. However Its been almost ten years, we have destroyed two country's and lost thousands of our own soldiers lives invading countries we have no business being in. Isn't it time to learn from our own mistakes and stop blaming a religion that just so happens to have some fundamentalist who dislike the amount of freedom our country has to offer.
To view more images from this event go to http://bit.ly/9Dh0rb