I remember learning about McCarthyism and the “Red Scare” in school. In the fifties for about four years, Sen. Joseph McCarthy alleged that Communists and their sympathizers were everywhere. Though McCarthy was eventually admonished and disavowed, the damage was done, and lives and careers of many American citizens were destroyed.

Recently, history almost repeated itself, if briefly. Only Rep. Michele Bachmann has taken the place of McCarthy, and Muslims have taken the place of Communists.

Bachmann sent a lettter to Deputy Inspector General Harold W. Geisel of the Department of State alleging that the State Department and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been taking actions that have been “favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood”, and that Muslims are trying to influence government policy, and, eventually, infiltrate and destroy the U.S. government. She also alleges that Clinton adviser Huma Abedin is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood because her mother, her deceased father, and her brother are “connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.”

These are some serious charges, Mrs. Bachmann. But I don’t see any proof in your letter.

Abedin is a practicing Muslim, there is no disputing that. In fact there were over 2 million Muslims in the U.S. in 2010, and that population is expected to triple by 2030, according to January 2011 report from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. There are quite a few Muslim organizations that lobby for political change. In 2004 there was an organization called “Muslims for Bush” which rallied for George W. Bush’s re-election.

To insinuate that all Muslims are, or are connected to, terrorist organizations is not just gross stereotyping, it’s denigrating to a person’s faith. And don’t just use the old cherry-picked and grossly distorted line from the Koran, specifically 2.191 of “The Cow” that states, “And kill them whereever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.” Because two can play at that game. Here’s a verse from “Time”, 76.8, also in the Koran: “And they give food out of love for Him to the poor and the orphan and the captive:” Or how about “The Women” 4.36: “And serve Allah and do not associate anything with Him and be good to the parents and to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the neighbor of (your) kin and the alien neighbor, and the companion in a journey and the wayfarer and those whom your right hands possess; surely Allah does not love him who is proud, boastful;”

Shame on you, Bachman, and your cronies, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), and Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) for attempting to start another “Red Scare”. That is not Christian of any of you.