This is an age, in America, when to see people teaming across an open space that is not a ball field, is to see protest – most likely on the news, in a far away place. New York, Oakland; Cairo, Tunis; Barcelona, Athens; Delhi. Or perhaps it is the bustling crowd under the sodium light of a parking lot, in the wee hours after Thanksgiving dinner has been packed into the refrigerator. Waiting for this year's must-have bargain.

Vanderbilt University, a large private school in Tennessee, is enforcing rules that require all student groups receiving on campus funds to open up membership to anyone - including officer positions (story on NPR). Naturally, this is of great concern to Faith-based organizations in particular: one can easily imagine a group of atheists gate-crashing a meeting and electing their own leader to be the President/Chair/Grand Poobah of the <insert religion> Association.

This past Wednesday I was proud to take part in a banquet event on the theme of "Embracing Unity," sponsored by the non-profit Grand Prairie Unity Coalition, of which I am a new Board member. This was the 7th such banquet, which brought together people from many like-minded organizations, local / county / state politicians, and most importantly, around 40 students and family from the local school district. The organization's mission is to provide education and opportunities for cross-cultural association to the Grand Prairie community, and that mission was admirably pursued with Wednesday's event.

So asked a new friend (well, something close to this anyway). In a nutshell: it means striving to build unity in our midst, and acting on a path of service that starts "at home" but continues into the whole community, not just the Bahá'ís.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who have debunked this already, but I'll add my take. I received a forwarded e-mail that asked this question and proposed a set of ridiculous assertions pointing to an answer of "no." This came from a family member and normally I just ignore his messages. I couldn't bite my tongue on this one though.

Simply put, I have known too many good Muslims not to respond to the many misconceptions and incorrect assertions in the points that follow.