Why the Tea Party needs Straining

I'm a newly-minted American - and very proud of that fact. I love this country, it's history and everything it stands for.

Which is why I was absolutely disgusted - disgusted - to watch this video of so-called 'Tea Party' activists gathering outside an Islamic center in Orange County, California.

Enraged by a charity fundraiser being held there, they were reduced to yelling 'go back home' to women and small children as they gathered for a fund-raising event there.

Watch the video and you'll see what an intimidating, unpleasant experience it was for those attending the event - having to walk up to the entrance of the Muslim Center while a flag-waving crowd yelled and roared abuse each step of the way.

The fund-raising was for "women’s shelters, fighting hunger and homelessness in the area" - arguably a very valid cause. But the event had caused offense to the local Tea Party because two of the speakers invited to the event had been 'linked to terrorism.'

This caused speakers like city council member Deborah Pauly to attend the Tea Party protest and boast on camera that she knew "quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help 'those' terrorists," pointing at the people entering the mosque, "to an early meeting in paradise."

But 'linked to terrorism' was actually a bit of misnomer, as the speakers in question, Imam Siraj Wahhaj and Amir Abdel Malik Ali, had been investigated for possible links to terrorism, but never actually indicted. Those two New York clerics were admittedly nasty pieces of work, who've expressed support for Hezbollah and Hamas, but being nasty pieces of work is a long way from actually being actively involved in terrorism (which they're not.) I understand they both declined the invitation to speak, in any case, due to the controversy their attendance would incite.

Nevertheless, the Tea Party protest went ahead. This meant that abuse and slurs were yelled at the women and children attending the event, despite the fact that most of them were born and bred in Orange County California, and were no more linked to terrorism than I was.

Deborah Pauly's blithe comments - calling for 'Muslim Americans to be killed' according to one liberal news source - were even more offensive in that context.

Even ignoring that vile woman's words, the protest meeting - heralded by fluttering American flags and patriotic chants - was horrifying because 'American' and 'Patriotism' are two words that these bigoted racists have no right to lay claim to.

I have a number of friends who identify as members of the 'tea party' - but none of them would be willing to be associated with the kind of fascist scum gathered at this little hate parade in California.

What I found most offensive - as a brand new American citizen myself - were the calls of 'go back home.' How dare anybody tell American citizens to 'go back home.'

If somebody told me to 'go back home' because I expressed an opinion they disagreed with, I'd be tempted to punch them in the face. I earned my American citizenship - and likewise I don't consider any of the bigots waving American flags to be 'more' American than any of the Muslim-American citizens attending that fundraiser.

You don't have to be white, Christian or even originally born in this country to be 'American' - and as those racist demonstrators proved, you can be all three of those things and still barely deserve a claim to the title.

The fact that this revolting event was organized by so-called members of the 'tea party' proves one thing - the movement needs 'straining' of racist bigots, before it loses all political relevance altogether.

Thanks to the conservative friends I have, I still take the Tea Party seriously - but that's a sentiment undermined by what I saw going on in Orange County.

Now I'm absolutely horrified by the connotations of supporting such a movement. I'm reasonably conservative myself - certainly not a fan club of Muslim-driven politics or social culture - but when it comes to the basic values of American society; the freedoms of religion and expression protected by the 1st Amendment; I'd rather side with Muslims than with the maggots and bottom-feeders who attended the hate-filled 'tea party' protest in California.

Bloody Rowan Williams...

Sometimes, these modern 'men of the cloth' should be gagged with it.

Back in my day - and my 'day' was less than a decade ago, mind - there was a clear distinction between politics and religion. Your local vicar concerned himself (or herself, in this day and age) with your spiritual wellbeing and kept their opinions out of their sermons.

But golly, not any more. Now the church shoves more political dogma down your throat than a member of the Socialist Worker's party.

It's the Church of England I get especially annoyed about.

I mean, we've already had the one stupid woman who declared that she could be a practising Church of England vicar AND a practising Muslim both at the same time.

Now we've got the head honcho - le grand fromage - waxing lyrical about the state of the world in the Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican Church, ranted bombastically in an interview with Emel on the evils of America's foreign policy and their fall from moral grace.

It was a heartwarming bit of solidarity with the growing anti-American movement in Europe. Getting it published in a Muslim magazine (perhaps not the most objective of publications) was the icing on the cake.

Personally, I'm very angry with him. Politics and religion should have nothing at all to do with each other. I thought that an organisation as venerable as the Church of England might understand that.

Why am I angry?

I mean, I'm not exactly a regular church goer and I have been undergoing somewhat of a crisis of faith recently. Why should I care what Archbishop Williams has to say?

Well, because his bleating, cynical, politically-motivated rant ends up being considered an 'opinion' of the Church of England and all who pledge their loyalty to her. People like me - because I firmly consider myself an Anglican.

In America, you're expected to label your religious convictions just like you are your political and ethnic ones. Just as you have Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans and African-Americans, or Liberals, Moderates or Conservatives, you have Baptists, Catholics and Episcopalians (that's us Anglicans.)

Unless you firmly identify yourself as one type of Christian, you're forever being invited to luncheons at the local church. Plus, by declaring myself a proud Episcopalian, I was declaring my roots to my 'mother country.'

It's the denomination I was raised as. It means something to me. We have a history.

I declare my loyalties to the Anglican church - and now the head of that church has gone and embarrassed me with his ill-considered rant.

So Americans ask: Where do your loyalties lie? With your adopted country or your church?

To a very small degree, I'm beginning to understand the problems young Muslims must face growing up in Britain and America. They have religion saying one thing, but the culture they have been brought up in standing for something else. Their religious leaders make them choose - and having to make that choice results in things like the 7/11 suicide bombings in London.

Mixing religion and politics is very wrong and very dangerous.

All Rowan Williams has done is driven a wedge even deeper between me and my relationship with the Church of England. And considering the plummeting level of church attendees, perhaps I'm not the only one he's alienated.

I think the Archbishop of Canterbury should be admonished for his political bleating and told to keep his eye on what's important - people's spirituality. Too many modern 'men of the cloth' forget that pride is a sin and use the pulpit more to feed their egos than to stoke the fires of their congregation's belief.

Shame on all of them.

Guy Fawkes Day

Four hundred and two years ago, Guy Fawkes and a band of collaborators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening.

The year was 1605 - 71 years after Henry VII had declared himself Head of the Church of England. For seven decades, Catholic conspirators had plotted to return a Catholic monarch to the English throne, but they had been foiled at every turn.

It was Robert Catesby, who had already risked the executioner's axe supporting the Earl of Essex's ill-fated scheme to depose Queen Elizabeth, who came up with the latest and most ambitious plot to overthrow the English crown.

He and his band of collaborators, led by Guy Fawkes, rented a cellar under the Houses of Parliament in London, which they filled with almost a ton of gunpowder. During the State opening of Parliament, when King James I planned to address the ministers of England, the conspirators intended to light the explosives and obliterate the treacherous king and his hated government.

Had they succeeded, English history would never have been the same. Parliament, the Great Hall and even Westminster Abbey would have been blown to rubble. It was a singularly ambitious and spectacular act of terrorism.

But terrorists were a treacherous lot even back then and it was Francis Tresham, a man reluctantly recruited to the Catholic cause due to his money and influence, who betrayed Guy Fawkes and his conspirators.

Tresham wrote to his brother in law, Lord Monteagle, advising him to "devise some excuse not to attend this parliament, for they shall receive a terrible blow, and yet shall not see who hurts them."

Monteagle revealed the warning to the Earl of Salisbury and later that night, when the 5th of November 1605 was but a few hours old, men-at-arms discovered Guy Fawkes lurking in the gunpowder packed cellar, carrying a watch, matches and fuses.

The conspiracy was foiled and Parliament convened as planned a few days later.

Ironically, the Catholics had plotted to assassinate King James I because of his intolerance of their faith. After the full extent of the plot had been uncovered, King James gave a speech to the people of England in which he declared "it did not follow that all professing the Romish religion were guilty of the same."

In much the same way that Tony Blair and the British government have clarified that modern day terrorism is committed by a minority of Muslims, rather than Islam as a whole, King James declared that the gunpowder plot was not representative of the English Catholic community.

Despite that statement, Catholic Emancipation in England still took another 200 years.

As for the conspirators themselves? Guy Fawkes was tortured extensively, before being hung, drawn and quartered in Old Palace Yard. Robert Catesby fled to the midlands of England, where he was shot and killed in a shootout with guards sent to arrest him.

And now, even four hundred years later, people in Britain celebrate Guy Fawke's day with bonfires, fireworks and stuffed 'guys.' Perhaps the exact details of the event are vague in many people's minds, but this famous poem helps remind us of why the 5th of November is such an important date:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,

The gunpowder, treason and plot,

I see of no reason why gunpowder treason,

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent

To blow up the King and the Parliament.

Three score barrels of powder below,

Poor old England to overthrow:

By God's providence he was catch'd

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

Hip hip hoorah!

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.

A farthing o' cheese to choke him.

A pint of beer to rinse it down.

A fagot of sticks to burn him.

Burn him in a tub of tar.

Burn him like a blazing star.

Burn his body from his head.

Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.

Hip hip hoorah!

Hip hip hoorah!