I believe in my fellow Americans, and I believe that all this hatred, bigotry and ,frankly, stupidity ,while used as a tool to keep us from thinking instead of reacting in knee jerk fashion, stems from a small and vocal minority made to look large by a media obsessed more with selling papers and ads than in truly reporting fairly or accurately.

I refuse to believe that your enlightened and passionate plea for sanity is not the common position of the great majority of us.

We did not smear all Christians when some nutjob slaughtered an abortion doctor in the name of their god.

We should not blame all Muslims for the actions of their religions extremists either.

nonstop hate and denigration. This is the country that let Westboro attack hundreds of minority funerals with virtually no push back from outside the community being attacked. I'd hate to see that happen to others.
This is the country that treated LGBT differently in immigration, in taxation, that permits discrimination against us in housing and employment and does so proudly.

I think all the years of allowing all that hate was a mistake. That bigotry, not really a sacrament. That invective, not really all that safe and sound. All that prejudice, actually toxic.

When my mother immigrated here she faced intolerance and xenophobia but that was nothing compared to how Muslims and refugees are being treated.

I'm tired of the Xenophobia in this country, primarily led by people who think this nation was founded in one religion, TOTALLY forgetting the meaning of religious freedom.

that some 'celebrity' Muslims would put a more public face to their American-ness: Dave Chapelle, Mike Tyson, Jermaine and Janet Jackson, Shaquille, Kareem, Ice Cube, Snoop Dog, Asif Mandvi, Dr. Oz, Amal Clooney, Ellen Burstyn for heaven's sake, and many, many more. Where are they? Are they afraid of a Dixie Chick-style retribution?

I'm proud to stand with them also.

As others have posted, people who are intolerant come in all flavors.

Also, they are the victims of Muslim extremism more often than anyone else, by a huge margin. The anti-Islam sentiments are not just inhumane, they are illogical.

The vast majority of the VICTIMS of Isis are Muslims.

My heart goes out to the Muslim Americans. It's a travesty what's happening, and shameful.

I am so sick of this hate mongering. It's destructive.

who said nothing when their neighbors were rounded up in the 1930s.

I do have brothers and sisters who happen to be Muslim.

We are family first, how each of us says good morning to G*d is secondary at best.

Thank you for this, Cali. It is important.I think there are a number of ways that we can accomplish this, from the simple, every-day individual interactions, to a more socio-political level.

Where I live, there has been a significant increase in the Islamic population. You may recall a few years back, when the Town Supervisor of Sidney, NY, attempted to force a tiny Sufi settlement to destroy their perfectly legal cemetery. Those events provided me with the opportunity to travel to my old home town, and become acquainted with the Sufi people. I would also become, for lack of better word, a "leader" in the grass roots effort to protect the cemetery. This included the chance to engage in some valuable "public education."

While I am friends with individuals from a few of the Islamic groups in the region I live in, I obviously do not know every one of them. Yesterday, at the grocery store, I saw a young man who I am not familiar with. I made a point of greeting him, and engaging in a brief, casual conversation about the weather. I do not have the ability to communicate with words the beauty of this young man's smile; I know that he enjoyed having a complete stranger recognizing him as a fellow human being ....for even small-town America can be very hostile to "others" -- especially Muslims in America in 2015.

It is very important that, at this time when shitheads like Donald Trump give voice to the hatreds, fears, and anxieties of the ignorant, that people of good will engage in a campaign of public education. I am interested in what steps that you and others here suggest might be effective today.

Again, thank you. You are truly beautiful!

It is so painful watching this tide of hate and intolerance rise. And frustrating and infuriating. Bigotry under the name of not being politically correct is nothing but bigotry.

There's a modest Muslim community here in Portland, and I've never had anything but good experiences interacting with them. Good people, good neighbors...most strike me as no different from any other Portlander (save for our tendency to go a bit overboard with beer on occasion). Many are proud American citizens.

So far as I know, there's been all of one bad apple (in terms of terrorism): that dumbass kid who was planning on setting off a bomb at an event in downtown Portland, but got caught before he could execute his plan.