When I was applying for a visa to visit the United States in the late 1960s, the many forms I had to fill out were full of questions like, “Are you a communist?” “Have you ever been a communist?” “Are you a homosexual?” “Do you intend to become a homosexual?”
Then, in the early 1980s, friends visiting from overseas report that they were asked additional questions like, “Are you a drug addict?” “Are you an intravenous drug user?” “Are you HIV-positive?” “Do you have AIDS?”
And now, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump wants to stop all Muslims from entering the United States because they might be terrorists. This he intends to accomplish by simply asking, “Are you Muslim? ‘Fess up! Are you a Muslim?”
One of the essential freedoms guaranteed all Americans is the freedom of worship. Those among us who are horrified by Trump’s stigmatization of an entire religion, who see inevitable parallels to the persecution of Jews by Adolf Hitler, ought not to sit idly by and do nothing.
Remember Spartacus? At the end of that movie, when the frustrated Roman soldiers demanded to know where Spartacus was hiding, his many followers all stepped forward, one by one, each one proudly declaring, “I am Spartacus!” If it should ever become necessary, those of us traveling abroad, upon returning to these United States, in solidarity with our non-Christian brethren, we too can proclaim, “I am Muslim!”