Johnny Piper, the mayor of Clarksville, Tennessee, home of Fort Campbell, forwarded an e-mail that protested a U. S. postage stamp commemorating two Muslim holidays.
Here is the story from the Tennessean.
According to a copy of the e-mail obtained by The Leaf-Chronicle, Piper forwarded the e-mail, which had been forwarded several times previously, without comment. Piper sent the e-mail to every City Council member, every department head, and numerous other city employees, friends and family members.
The e-mail falsely claims that the stamp is new, and its creation was ordered by President Barack Obama.
In fact, the stamp was first issued in 2001, and was reissued in 2002, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
According to the USPS, the stamp: "commemorates the two most important festivals— or eids — in the Islamic calendar: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. On these days, Muslims wish each other ‘Eid mubarak,’ the phrase featured in Islamic calligraphy on the stamp. ‘Eid mubarak’ translates literally as ‘blessed festival,’ and can be paraphrased as ‘May your religious holiday be blessed.’"
As reported above, the first problem with the e-mail is that it gets almost all of the facts about the stamp wrong. It was issued when George W. Bush was president.
The e-mail went on to make a long list of attacks agianst Ameircan interests, carried out by Muslim extremists, such as 9/11, the USS Cole, the Pan Am bombing, etc. It makes the claim that
"To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors."
Believe it or not, Mayor Piper has offered a half-hearted non-pology and still defends sending the e-mail.
Piper today defended forwarding the e-mail, saying he sent it on as "information," for others to read and make their own conclusions about.
"I don't see any reason why it would be inappropriate," Piper said, adding that he thought the e-mail was neither anti-Muslim or anti-Islamic.
"I was surprised at a stamp being developed, and would have thought others would be, too," he said.
In a television interview he actually made this lame excuse
I don't have time to check every e-mail I get on Snopes.
Of course, what the news reports miss is that this is really an attack on Barack Obama, attempting to revive the accusation that he is a "secret Muslim."
Let's hope the pressuure stays on Piper and he is far from finished apologizing.