I am not an admirer of Gordon Brown, the new UK Prime Minister, but I’m starting to think better of him. He’s banned ministers in his Cabinet from using the word “Muslim” in connection with the terrorism crisis. (report)

And the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has said, “[T]errorists are criminals, whose victims come from all walks of life, communities and religions. Terrorists attack the values shared by all law-abiding citizens.”

The cry immediately went up that this was political correctness run amok, that mollycoddling the sensitivities of any given community was pathetic, that “I don’t think we need pussyfoot around when talking about terrorism.”

I swear, some of these people manage to win a seat in government, but couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag.

You dignify terrorists by calling them Muslims. It gives them a cloak of cosmic truth that they could never get on their own.

The fact that there are violent elements in the tenets of Islam doesn’t make that any less true. There are violent tenets in the Old Testament. That doesn’t mean every Planned Parenthood clinic bombing should be called a Christian act.

It dignifies the criminals to associate them with religions. Religion is something good in the minds of millions. By letting the terrorists wrap themselves in it, millions of people start thinking the terrorists mean well.

That is why you stop parroting the criminals’ excuses for their crimes.

Sure, it’s more respectful of the religion, and of the community, and of the real human beings in that community. It’s also a whole lot less respectful of the criminals.

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