A Teddy Bear Named Mohammed, Religious Persecution And Quakers

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A Teddy Bear Named Mohammed, Religious Persecution And Quakers

By Bonijean Isaacs
Dec. 5, 2007

British teacher Gillian Gibbons was sentenced to fifteen days in Prison and order deported from Sudan for “Insulting Religion.” If she had been convicted of the other charges of inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs, she would have faced six months in prison and forty lashes.

There were hundreds of Islamic protesters gathered outside the presidential palace waving ceremonial swords from trucks equipped with loudspeakers, denouncing Gibbons and demanding her execution.

Gibbons was eventually pardoned and sent back to Great Britain. Her crime was allowing her seven year old students to name a Teddy Bear “Mohammed.”

This Situation makes me grateful for the United States and its Wisdom of Separation of Church and State. Radical Religious Fanatics are not excusive to the Islamic Faith.

In Colonial American religious people who were themselves persecuted for religious reasons in Europe soon demanded that fellow immigrants conform to their religious dogmas.

Folks who did not conform were tried and punished for failure to attend upon public worship, and entertaining heretical opinions The Puritans had them whipped, jailed and hanged for breaking their strict religious codes that they enforced as laws. Ironically these were the same folks who fled Europe in order to have religious freedom. Once here, however, they only wanted freedom for their own religion.

Thank God for the Quakers who introduced the United States to the Concept of Independence and religious tolerance.

The Quakers were banished from Massachusetts and hung if they returned. The Quaker Leader William Penn helped to establish the Colony of Pennsylvania as refuge for Quakers but welcomed other minorities. It has been written, "It was because Penn not only tolerated but welcomed diversity that Pennsylvania became the most diverse, dynamic, and prosperous of the original thirteen colonies".

I would not be inclined to name a Teddy Bear after Mohammed or even Jesus but William Penn would be a good name. After all the Teddy Bear was named after a United States President so why not the Quaker Oats Man.

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About the Author: Bonijean Isaacs is an Astrologer and Freelance Writer in the Commonwealth of Virginia. She works at WallyWorld for her day job.

Email: inez4liberty@gmail.com

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