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America cannot survive epidemic of intolerance
By Carl Heintze
I keep thinking of Joseph Ileto. Joseph was born in the Philippines. He came to California seeking freedom, the freedom that has always been the promise of the United States.
He got a job with the U.S. Postal Service. His life seemed better. He was carrying his mail route a couple of weeks ago when he met the fleeing would-be assassin of the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center, a man he did not know, had never met, did not hate, to whom he harbored nothing but neutral feelings.
His assailant fired ten bullets at him. He killed Joseph Ileto simply because of the color of his skin and because he was a government employee.
The murder was as senseless as the fact that earlier the same man had wounded three small children because "they got in the way," inconveniently making it difficult for him to shoot two older women. It is all very well to say that the man with the gun is unbalanced. But even if he is, he represents a clear and present danger to the country in which we live.
For years he has skated along the edges of those who consider North America the sole possession of "white" "Christians."
And as I think of Joseph Ileto's death, I also keep thinking of two sisters with whom my granddaughters went to church camp this summer. The two sisters are of Portuguese descent. They were raised as Catholics. At the church camp they were told to their surprise that they are not Christians. They are not "Christians" because have not been "born again."
These two events may seem to be unrelated, but to me they are not. They represent a schism that is growing in the United States, a division between those who believe they have inherited this land because of who their ancestors were, by what they believe and what others do not, by social and economic status. They represent those who would deny the heritage of this country.
This nation was founded by those fleeing religious persecution in the Old World. It was a nation created to provide refuge for such people as Joseph Ileto. It was a place where it was supposed to be possible to practice any religion freely so long as it did not endanger that of any other religious group.
Yet we now seem to have come to a division in that nation, to a place where some individuals, no matter how few, have come to believe that America was created for "white" "Christian" peoples.
Who are "white" and who are "Christian" and who gave them the right to exclude all others from our country is not clear. It certainly was not a concept carried across the Atlantic by those who had been imprisoned, tortured or shunned in Europe. America was settled by diverse religions. It was made to grow by diverse ethnic groups from many lands. It has been sustained and enriched by its differences. It has even fought a civil war over freedom for those with different-colored skins.
Nowhere does the Constitution guarantee any religion or any ethnic group the freedom to suppress any other. Nor is there any assurance that any group is so possessed of God's ear that it can decide for others what they should believe. And yet sects continue to assure us that their belief not only is best but that it is so right that it must become a part of the law of the land.
We face the delicate task of telling these people they cannot do this and expect the Republic to survive, and yet we cannot do away with them just to prevent them from forcing us to believe as they do.
They appear to have no tolerance for anyone but themselves. Yet to me it seems that at their cores they are desperately afraid. They are afraid to lose the little they possess. They want to be assured that what they perceive as salvation really is, that if they stick as rigidly as they can to rules they have invented that they will reach heaven intact.
Any differences are to them intolerable, for differences not only threaten what they have, but what they want to become. It is easiest for them to find differences in those who speak, look or act differently than they do, and so they concentrate on those like Joseph Ileto.
They are wrong. Yet it is difficult to know how to deal with their hate and insecurity. But we must somehow find a way to tolerate them while at the same time prevent them from further damaging the dream of this country as a refuge for those who cannot find tolerance elsewhere.
For although intolerance did not build America, it could well destroy it.
Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
