{"id":1647,"date":"2009-09-02T17:32:50","date_gmt":"2009-09-02T17:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/09\/president-obama-notes-muslim-c.php"},"modified":"2009-09-02T17:32:50","modified_gmt":"2009-09-02T17:32:50","slug":"president-obama-notes-muslim-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/president-obama-notes-muslim-c","title":{"rendered":"President Obama Notes Muslim Contributions at Dinner Marking Ramadan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama highlighted the contributions of Muslim Americans Tuesday (Sept. 1) during his first Iftar dinner marking the observance of Ramadan.<br \/>\n&#8220;Islam, as we know, is part of America,&#8221; he said, addressing, diplomats, faith leaders and members of Congress gathered in the State Dining Room for the feast that traditionally breaks the daily fast during the monthlong holiday.<br \/>\n&#8220;Indeed, the contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe president cited examples of Muslim Americans&#8217; roles in American culture, from Kareem Khan, a soldier from New Jersey who died in Iraq, to Nashala Hearn, an Oklahoma student who fought in court for the right to wear a hijab, or headscarf, to school.<br \/>\nObama said he was pleased the dinner was attended by people of a range of faiths &#8212; including Christians, Jews and Hindus, as well as prominent Muslims.<br \/>\n&#8220;Together, we have a responsibility to foster engagement grounded in mutual interest and mutual respect,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And that&#8217;s one of my fundamental commitments as president, both at home and abroad.&#8221;<br \/>\nShirley Dobson, chairman of the nongovernmental National Day of Prayer Task Force, criticized Obama&#8217;s decision to mark Ramadan with a White House ceremony but not her group&#8217;s National Day of Prayer observance.<br \/>\nDobson said &#8220;the president&#8217;s decision to carry on the tradition of hosting a White House dinner to celebrate the Muslim holy season of Ramadan is curious.&#8221; She continued: &#8220;It&#8217;s simply unfortunate that he didn&#8217;t choose to extend the same level of courtesy and recognition this past May to the millions of supporters and organizers of the National Day of Prayer.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>By Adelle M. Banks<br \/>\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama highlighted the contributions of Muslim Americans Tuesday (Sept. 1) during his first Iftar dinner marking the observance of Ramadan. &#8220;Islam, as we know, is part of America,&#8221; he said, addressing, diplomats, faith leaders and members of Congress gathered in the State Dining Room for the feast that traditionally breaks the daily&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>President Obama Notes Muslim Contributions at Dinner Marking Ramadan<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/president-obama-notes-muslim-c\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"President Obama Notes Muslim Contributions at Dinner Marking Ramadan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama highlighted the contributions of Muslim Americans Tuesday (Sept. 1) during his first Iftar dinner marking the observance of Ramadan. &#8220;Islam, as we know, is part of America,&#8221; he said, addressing, diplomats, faith leaders and members of Congress gathered in the State Dining Room for the feast that traditionally breaks the daily&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/president-obama-notes-muslim-c\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-02T17:32:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mconsoli\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"President Obama Notes Muslim Contributions at Dinner Marking Ramadan","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/president-obama-notes-muslim-c","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"President Obama Notes Muslim Contributions at Dinner Marking Ramadan","og_description":"WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama highlighted the contributions of Muslim Americans Tuesday (Sept. 1) during his first Iftar dinner marking the observance of Ramadan. &#8220;Islam, as we know, is part of America,&#8221; he said, addressing, diplomats, faith leaders and members of Congress gathered in the State Dining Room for the feast that traditionally breaks the daily&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/president-obama-notes-muslim-c","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-09-02T17:32:50+00:00","author":"mconsoli","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/president-obama-notes-muslim-c","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/president-obama-notes-muslim-c","name":"President Obama Notes Muslim Contributions at Dinner Marking Ramadan","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-02T17:32:50+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-02T17:32:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/9cadc277e135f295b85f71137e2447a6"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/president-obama-notes-muslim-c#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/president-obama-notes-muslim-c"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/09\/president-obama-notes-muslim-c#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"President Obama Notes Muslim Contributions at Dinner Marking Ramadan"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/9cadc277e135f295b85f71137e2447a6","name":"mconsoli","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2ad\/2ad44a0d65de6022a5c619dffa5e7fddx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2ad\/2ad44a0d65de6022a5c619dffa5e7fddx96.jpg","caption":"mconsoli"},"description":"\"Moderation is the center wherein all philosophies, both human and divine, meet.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d -Benjamin Disraeli","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/mconsoli"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}