I tell them that Muslims may make up 2% of the US population, roughly on par with Jews, and that I know plenty of people who have either converted away from Islam, or don't practice it in any meaningful sense, but only personally know one individual who converted to Islam.
If you talk to law enforcement officials, they will tell you that one of the best places to convert non-believers to Islam is the American prison system.
Most of the men in prison (I'm referring to the long-term guests of the state here) are cut off from positive influences both inside and outside the walls of the prison. It's no wonder that chaplains of all faiths are able to report significant numbers of converts.
And I hasten to add that the majority of the Muslim chaplains in American prisons have no desire to lead their converts to blow themselves up in police stations or supermarkets when they get out. Most Muslim chaplains are much more concerned with helping their converts become peaceful and productive members of the community when their sentences are up.
The problem is that there are a small minority of Muslim chaplains who either point their converts toward radical Islam or direct them to radical Imams when the prisoners are released. I don't know of any Christian or Jewish chaplains who have ever done this. (See
this example or
this one or
this one .)
To those who would take the position that any faith which brings peace to prison yards and hope for a better life to the prisoners inside is a good thing, I must provisionally agree. Prisons are too violent a place for most men and women who have any desire to build a better life (hence the original name 'penitentiary,' meaning 'a place to repent'). But if even one percent of these Muslim prison missionaries are making converts with the aim of using these people to incite more violence, it's too many.
And let's make certain we get the full context of the late Jerry Falwell's comments
here. Dr. Falwell told CNN
I would never blame any human being except the terrorists, and if I left that impression with gays or lesbians or anyone else, I apologize.
What Falwell said, however, actually dovetails quite nicely with what Dinesh D'Souza wrote in his book "The Enemy At Home." In it, D'Souza asserts that what most Arabs (Muslims and non-Muslims alike) hate about America is the rampant consumerism and what they view as our immoral lifestyles, combined with our apparent insistence in forcibly exporting that lifestyle all over the world. And he makes a pretty convincing argument.
