One of the most poignant stories in religiously motivated violence, at least in the consciousness of Americans, was the series of disastrous events of 9/11. In the wake of that event, several previously assumed privileges of United States citizens came under scrutiny and were subject to curtailment. I know that on the rare occasions when I fly I feel demeaned by some uniformed stranger telling me to partially undress and explaining that if s/he has to feel me up it will be with the back side of the hand, to protect my modesty. Still, I never complain. Freedom has its price, they say.

Another place where we have funneled our abundant national resources is the Department of Homeland Security. We are willing to pay quantum-sized price-tags to feel safer at home. Then today’s newspaper announces that a fugitive from justice has been working at Homeland Security for two years. A woman nationally wanted for insurance fraud, arrested once after the bulletin was posted, was just now discovered to have been working for Homeland Security. Having watched concerned parents have to go through extensive background checks and even fingerprinting to accompany their kids on a school fieldtrip, I’m not sure that this news makes me sleep any more securely. If we can’t find a criminal who is a government employee (politicians excepted, of course), who has presumably undergone a background check (regularly required for those of us subjecting ourselves to applying for job openings), well, maybe we ought to address the religious violence issue instead.

A friend once told me of an acquaintance who’d failed a test to work in a fast-food restaurant who went on to be hired by the Transportation Safety Administration. So that guard reaching a latex glove toward me may not have had the wherewithal to attain to fast-food service, but will be keeping terrorists off our airplanes. If religious leaders would lay down their ungloved hands and seek to understand their enemies perhaps none of this would even be necessary.