The Interfaith Center of New York joins our Muslim neighbors – and people of good will from all faiths and none – in mourning the victims of Monday’s attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego. Our hearts go out to the families of the three men cut down by hate, to the young children traumatized by an attack on their school, and to the entire Muslim community of San Diego, left reeling by yet another assault on a house of worship.
Such attacks may no longer come as a surprise, but they should still come as a shock. Tragically, the Islamic Center of San Diego has joined the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Mother Emanuel church in Charleston, the Oak Creek Gurudwara outside of Milwaukee, and far too many other houses of worship targeted by hate. As Americans, as neighbors, and as human beings created in the image of a loving God, we must stand together and say NO MORE. No more hate violence, and no more of the dehumanizing, bigoted rhetoric that turns teenagers into instruments of this violence.
