Conversions at the Phoenix Islamic Cultural Center

When I first met Paul Griffin on Friday afternoon in front of Washington Park, during Jon Ritzheimer’s “Draw Muhammad” contest, he impressed me as a very big man with a very big voice and very strong opinions. (He also wore a very big hat — I wondered whether he’d mugged Curious George’s guardian for it.) To wit, Griffin was strongly in favor of the contest, which was then taking place, and the march on the Phoenix Islamic Cultural Center, which was scheduled to kick off shortly.

But when Griffin defended these churlish demonstrations, he did it in terms that forced me to pay attention:

By now, the crowd has doubled in size, and in confidence. By the flatbed where Michael executed his sketches, a bearded man wearing a hat with a swooping brim is declaiming for the media.

“We’re not trying to stop these people from being Muslims,” he booms. “I’m an American. I’m okay with that. It’s not that we hate these people. We don’t want to harm their property.”

The man in the hat speaks with passion and more than a touch of irritation. He says he’s sick of being made to feel like a bigot. Pointing to Ritzheimer, he says. “They threatened his life. They threatened his kids’ lives,” and demands to know if I intend to print that. I tell him I will if Ritzheimer confirms it. Looking mollified, the man nods and continues. “We’re defending their rights, too. ISIS has killed more Muslims than anyone else.

“But,” he says, stabbing the air with his forefinger. “We don’t give a shit if we offend anyone. In America, just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean we have to stop it.”

You can’t argue with that. Also, Griffin later went out of his way to apologize for addressing me in peremptory tones. (There was no need.) When we drifted out of touch, I had the sneaking suspicion that he was a mensch.

Turns out he is. According to a report in the Washington Post:

Paul Griffin, who had earlier said he didn’t care if his t-shirt was offensive, assured a small crowd of Muslims at the end of the rally that he wouldn’t wear it again.

“I promise, the next time you see me, I won’t be wearing this shirt,” he told one man while shaking his hand and smiling. “I won’t wear it again.”

Griffin proved that his mind was open in the best sense: he was willing to change his opinions, and his actions, given a compelling reason to do so. He deserves plenty of credit for this, but perhaps not quite as much as the counter-demonstrators at the center deserve for giving him that reason.

Griffin never says exactly what changed his mind. Jason Leger, who had also begun the day in Ritzheimer’s camp, says he changed his after receiving an invitation to join the Muslims for Friday prayers. He speaks of his surprise at finding “a bunch of peaceful people.”

I’m not surprised to hear that the counter-demonstrators were hospitable and gracious up close. But, gathered in their ranks before the mosque, they were anything but meek or passive. Instead, they exuded energy and confidence. Unlike Ritzheimer’s group, they weren’t acting out of fear, and it showed. They even looked as though they were enjoying themselves.

As expressed on their signs, their message was positive. I saw “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Love one another as I have loved you,” and “[Heart] heals all.” As far as I could tell, only one sign-bearer had gone dark, but his message – “FUCK ISIS, NOT ISLAM” — looked to me like the pithiest policy statement since Reagan appropriated the Russian proverb “Trust, but verify.”

But the counter-demonstrators could be confrontational, too. They did their damndest to shout the demonstrators down. For a time, some of them chanted, “NAZIS, GO HOME!” As anyone who’s posted on an Internet discussion board knows, calling an ideological opponent a Nazi is the worst possible form. (Granted, one of the demonstrators was wearing a shirt with sigel runes, but he was unique in this.) Among them were a few brawny young swains in identical black tank tops, sporting tattoos in Arabic script. Their guns offered room enough for the collected works of Ibn Khaldun. At first, I mistook them for a goon squad – not terrorists, certainly, but rowdies, head-breakers of the old school.

Together, the people who resisted Ritzheimer’s followers proved that it’s perfectly possible to express love and righteousness loudly, or even brashly. Some circumstances make it impossible to do anything else. In moderation, it can even be persuasive. As long as you’re willing to welcome the convert and let bygones be bygones, saying, “Screw you, too” can be as substantial a token as any of the humanity we all hold in common.