Why is it we shy away from confronting the single largest irony of this young century? 

To understand this irony, one has to understand that Islam regards the Quran as a continuation of the word of Allah (God in Arabic.) Allah gave the Old Testament to the Jewish prophets. The same Archangel Gabriel who foretold the birth of Jesus (Isa in the Quoran) and later dictated the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad. If you want to be quarrelsome, you can say that Muhammad plagiarized large chunks of the Bible. Muslims simply say the Quran was Allah's update of his earlier communications to the Jewish prophets and Christians. Muslim holy men often urge their followers to read the Bible to better understand the Quran. Yes! Amazing!

The Quran has its own version of the Garden found in Genesis. The story of Adam and his wife is virtually the same as in Genesis. (Eve is not named; Muslims call her Hawa.) When she was expelled from the Garden for eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, Hawa became the literal, physical incarnation of shahwa (lust, sexual desire.) Shahwa is the emotion of Satan (aka Iblis.)  If women's shahwa is not controlled it leads to fitna (social chaos.) Women provoke men by flaunting their "ornaments" (boobs, behinds, crotches.) Muslim require women to wear veils and smothering costumes so as to control their shahwa. Used as slang, fitna means a beautiful woman.

The Quran has the story of Moses, Noah and the ark, Jonah and the whale, and other stories from the Bible.

The fear of sex dominates Islam. It likewise dominates the imagination of Evangelical Christians (pushing abstinence, railing against sin and licentiousness, pretending to be horrified at Janet Jackson's nipple, and so on).

Muslims want Sharia (Allah's law.)

Evangelical Christians push for Sharia-Lite (variants of God's law pushed by the Bush administration and conservative Republicans. No abortion. No studying evolution. And so on. These are less harsh demands, true, but it is a matter of degree, not kind. Let them have their way and see how quickly their demands would escalate.)

When a male Evangelical Christian zealot looks in the mirror, he sees a Muslim looking back; he is willfully blind to the beard.

When a female Evangelical Christian zealot looks in the mirror, she sees a Muslim woman looking back; she is willfully blind to the veil.

We all look the other way and pretend these are two separate religions. They are not. Islam is a continuation of the Christianity imagined by fundamentalist, born-again Evangelical Christians who take the Bible as the literal word of God and believe it is their duty to inflict "God's law" on the rest of us. Let's be honest here; their idea of divine law, is Sharia-Lite.

This friends, is the great, unacknowledged irony of our times.

You here on Talking Points Memo never talk about it, if you ever thought about it.

Evangelical Christians (fundamentalists, born-agains) are in fact, terrorists within.

No, no, no, you cry!

What about the Alfred T. Murrah building in Oklahoma City that Timothy McVeigh and his pal Terry Nichols flattened on April 19, 1995. Well, you say, that only killed 168 people and wounded 800. Hmmm. We lost 3000 people to Muslim fanatics on September 11, 2001.

McVeigh said he blew the building up out of retaliation for the burning of the Branch Dravidian compound of religious nut balls in Waco, Texas,, and because he thought the government was out to destroy all Branch Dravidians.

All jihad means is "struggle" on behalf of Allah.

Face it, McVeigh was waging jihad on behalf of God.

The cost of retaliating against Muslim zealots? Well, largely the destruction of our national honor and reputation, that's not to mention the lives and limbs of our soldiers, and maybe our entire economy.

The cost of doing little to fight the Evangelical jihadists in our midst? 

Ask the young women who wanted abortions only to learn that the Christian jihadist in the White House, following the dictates of "God's law" demanded by his supporters, was doing everything to block them.

Ask the mothers and wives of the soldiers brought back from Iraq in coffins.

Ask people of various illnesses whose future relief was possibly delayed by prohibitions against stem cell research.

We allow the terrorists within to push us around politically in their attempt to inflict Sharia-Lite on us. We stand mute, our collective thumb up our national anus, because we have been taught that we are supposed to "respect" religion, no matter what the religionists are doing to us.

I say enough already. They have shown no respect for those who believe differently than they do. Why don't we speak up and tell the truth:

Evangelical Christians equal Muslims.

Fun to watch them hop up and down and throw tantrums at that comparison. But maybe we need to do that to put the final rout to the Repukes.