Originally published in the New Jersey Star Ledger on Feb. 24, 2012
By The Rev. Chloe Breyer
Shortly after 9/11, when I was a K-8 chaplain at the Cathedral School at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, I spent some of the time in chapel with middle-school students discussing a series of moral questions. One of them was, “Should the liberties of a few be sacrificed for the security of the many?” Most of the children thought no. One student said if liberty had to be sacrificed for security, then everyone should share in that sacrifice. It should not be apportioned only a few.
The authors of the troubles that have dogged the New York Police Department over the past few weeks with religious minorities, and especially Muslims in the tri-state area, could have heeded this advice. The revelations in January that almost 1,500 members of the NYPD were exposed to a grossly inaccurate and inflammatory video about Muslims in the United States, as well as reports this month and last August showing that the department monitored and collected information on 250 mosques, schools and businesses throughout the metropolitan area simply because of their religion, stem from a moral problem.
Read the full text at nj.com.
