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Sacred Matters | The Muppets are America. The Muppets offered us biting social commentary when their show began nearly forty years ago. Now, with their videos, they are showing us an antidote to the xenophobia infecting our political and popular discourses. In their videos, they are offering a hopeful and positive vision of America, which includes all of the people living in it — divorced, gay, Muslim, black, etc. — a message that will hopefully be even more explicit in their show.

Do Muslims Have to Be Democrats Now? – The New York Times. “As a Muslim, I’d vote for Jesus, but the Republicans won’t let him in, and the Democrats don’t believe in him,” said Hussein Rashid, a professor of religion at Barnard College, who concedes that he’s a tad bitter about his political options.

Is It Hateful To Believe In Hell? Bernie Sanders’ Questions Prompt Backlash | UPR Utah Public Radio. Hussein Rashid, founder of the religious literacy consultancy Islamicate L3C, doesn’t agree that the belief itself is a problem.   “I think we have to accept that there are theologies that are what I would call exclusionary, that only certain people will go to heaven and certain people will go to hell. They are not inherently Islamophobic or anti-Semitic,” Rashid said. “It’s when it turns into action that we start getting worried. “