Since 2003, Rev. Tom Martinez has served at Brooklyn’s All Souls Bethlehem Church. He is an  active participant and organizer of the annual Children of Abraham Peace Walk.

A reporter interviewing me on Staten Island in front of a building whose ownership is disputed (the Catholic Church sold it to a local Muslim community then reneged on the sale) asked me if I had anything else to say to the people who oppose the mosque.  I don’t remember exactly what I said.  Of course a month later I thought of the perfect thing to say:

“Well, yes, there is one last thing I’d like to add.  I encourage everyone who’s opposed to the creation of new mosques or community centers to ask yourself, ‘How many Muslims do I know?’  If the answer is zero, then I’d encourage you to make an effort to actually get to know someone who’s part of a local Muslim community.  Tell them you’ve decided not to pass judgment until you meet and speak with someone from their community.  You might be surprised by how warmly you will be received and the impact the experience will have on your perceptions.”

I was at another press conference just yesterday, this one was just a few blocks away from my church here in Brooklyn. My friend Mo Razvi, the Executive Director of a local Pakistani organization called COPO had asked me to stop by.

Mo was thrust into the limelight in wake of 9/11.  Family members whose loved ones were picked up for questioning came to him for legal assistance.  At the time he was a trusted businessman on Coney Island Avenue, one of the most demographically diverse neighborhoods in the continental US and home to a large community of Pakistani-Americans.

In addition to serving as a liaison between ordinary citizens and various law enforcement agencies (he proved so helpful in these matters he was eventually asked to complete a training course offered by the FBI), he also documented over 800 hate crimes carried out against Muslims in his neighborhood and throughout Brooklyn.

I met Mo seven years ago during the lead-up to the first Children of Abraham Peace Walk, an event that brings Muslims, Jews and Christians together in a spirit of peace.  Despite its success each year we had a hard time getting much press coverage.  That is until this past year we decided to end the walk at a proposed new mosque in Sheepshead Bay.  Suddenly we had all the press coverage we wanted and then some.

People who opposed the construction of the mosque held signs across the street, while on “our” side of the street Jewish, Christian and Muslim children were running wild with little American flags.  People spoke.  The ideal of religious freedom was lifted up.

Afterwards, as the crowd began to disperse I was talking to Naji Almontasser, a Yemeni-American whose wife was one of the co-founders of the peace walk along with Rabbi Ellen Lippmann.  I mentioned to Naji that I had left the death-bed of one of my best friends for the walk and would be returning momentarily to the Poconos to resume my vigil.  He reached into his pocket, pulled a key off a key-ring and said, “This is to my house in the Poconos.  Call me from the road and I’ll tell you how to get there.   My house is your house, my brother.”

As much I as cherish my friendships with Muslim interfaith leaders like Debbie and Naji Almontasser, I understand Islamaphobia.  After struggling with racism towards African Americans while studying at Union Seminary and working in Harlem, I had the opportunity to travel to Baghdad on a humanitarian delegation with Christian Peacemaker Teams just before the US invasion.  Life was normal then before the war.  The streets were teaming with mostly men as is the custom and I remember feeling a sense of dread at the sight of these large groups of Arabs.  But because I had just become conscious of my racism toward Blacks I was able to see that this was the same ugly fear only in a different veneer.  And sure enough as I met people and learned of their plight my heart melted.

One of the great gifts of living in Brooklyn is the opportunity to actually meet people from different cultural and religious backgrounds.  I’ve heard it said that opposition to the Muslim Community Center two  blocks from Ground Zero increases as you get further away from the location.  That’s not to say there’s no opposition from those close by, but rather it’s a way of capturing the extent to which these buildings have become lightning rods for very powerful feelings toward “the other.”

The less interaction we have with people who are different from us, the less opportunity we have to see that we have much in common.  When I worked in Harlem while studying at Union Seminary it was the ordinary things that helped me laugh at my fears.  I’d be walking to work in the morning and I’d see parents kissing their children goodbye outside their schools, making sure they had their lunches.  Slowly my preconceived notions of what it meant to walk through Harlem were transformed by the reality of the experience.

That’s why I want to ask those who are opposed to the mosques and the community center how many Muslims they know, because I believe there’s a power in people from different walks of life getting to know each other.

At yesterday’s press conference about the humanitarian crisis in  Pakistan one of the speakers reported that there are approximately 50, 000 pregnant women facing the prospect of giving birth amidst one of that country’s worst national disasters on record.  I looked around at our small crowd, a few TV reporters, a photographer from the Daily News, and wondered how many people would hear that fact?  Rabbi Bob Kaplan, who has done a lot to promote interfaith relations in the city was there and mentioned in passing what shame it is that the mosque controversy is getting so much media attention while this unprecedented humanitarian crisis is receiving so little.

Meanwhile, with September 11^th fast-approaching we’ll no doubt be bombarded by all many of opportunistic hate-speech.  I don’t always agree with Mayor Bloomberg but I think in this instance he pointed us in the right direction.  He said that the first responders died defending the very constitutional principles at stake in the current debate over religious freedom.  I think the truth of the matter might be even more basic than that.  I think that when those cops and firefighters ran into the towers, they were mostly thinking about saving human lives.  They weren’t concerned about whether the men and women in those buildings were Jews or Christians or Muslims.  They were concerned about saving lives.

So in the coming weeks as news of the swirling protest fills the airwaves and network news channels, think about the 50,000 pregnant women in Pakistan amidst an apocalyptic wasteland of utter disaster.  Drop off a can at one of the relief centers set up throughout the city (you can check COPO’s website for a listing).  And you never know, you might even meet a Muslim in the process.