Author: Associated Press
Publication: MSNBC.com
Date: October 24, 2007
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21455714/
Gifts returned to diversity panel; lawmaker
says book condones killing
A gift intended to promote diversity in Oklahoma
is generating controversy instead.
Several state lawmakers are returning copies
of the Quran to a state panel on diversity after one lawmaker claimed the
Muslim holy book condones the killing of innocent people.
In a letter to colleagues, state Representative
Rex Duncan says "most Oklahomans do not endorse the idea of killing innocent
women and children in the name of ideology." At least 17 other legislators
have notified the Governor's Ethnic American Advisory Council that they too
will return the gift.
The council's chairwoman, herself a Muslim,
is denouncing Duncan's assessment of Islam. She says Islam not an ideology
but a religion, and a "very peaceful, very inclusive" one.
In Washington, a spokesman for the Council
on American-Islamic Relations calls Duncan's statement "disturbing"
and "offensive."