This, however, is one of the reasons I love living here. As I've said many times, I live in one of the most ethnically diverse places in the country and we generally get along*. In an attempt to further that understanding, our local Mosque invited all the non-Muslims around here to afternoon prayers the other day and many of my neighbors attended.
At 75, Jan Sepulveda, a Roman Catholic, stepped foot in a mosque for the first time in her life Wednesday.
She took off her shoes, wrapped a black scarf around her head, and entered the Masjid Darul Qur'an mosque in Bay Shore while an imam prayed in Arabic.
"I hate bigotry," Sepulveda said in an interview. "I want to know more about people who are different from me."
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Makes me proud to be an Islander.
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Wednesday, the entrance at the mosque in Bay Shore was decorated with red, white and blue balloons, as if to underscore the congregation's allegiance to the United States. The sanctuary was visited by politicians, ministers, community leaders and ordinary citizens.
[Imam] Rehman explained some of the basic practices of the faith, such as the removal of shoes in the sanctuary, the separation of males and females into different areas during prayer, and the five times a day that observant Muslims pray.
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That, my friends, is what America is all about.
Update:
*Come to think about it, I did yell at the Afghani next door to keep his chickens in his own damn yard so my dogs wouldn't pick up any parasites. Heh ...
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