INAUGURAL ADDRESS 2005 - An offense?

Today our president spoke, words that grew from heartseed planted long ago and over many years. Some are attacking his speech on political grounds, some on economic grounds, and some on the soil of special-interest; others attack for global reasons and still others for religious reasons. All of these I understand.

However, one paragraph is the focus of many good people who ignore the hope filled ennobling of the rest of the president's address. In that one paragraph, they attack one word as if it, by itself, were about to end life on earth - that word Koran.

Who are those who attack the president through this word? They are my fellow believers, my fellow American-Christians. They believe wrong-headedly that the president was endorsing the Koran as an inspired text, equal to the bible of his faith, an act which would be blasphemous and heretical if it were true. But that is not what this man did!

Here is the offending paragraph with the offending word, you judge it for yourself!

In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character - on integrity, and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people. Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came before - ideals of justice and conduct that are the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Any grammarian will tell you the object of the verbs "is built" and "(is) supported" and "(is) sustained" is "truth." The offending word is just one word tied to the object of the sentence by a prepositional phrase which lists three documents, each highly valued by three of the major faiths in our country today: Judaism (Sinai), Christianity (Sermon), and Islam (Koran).

Shame on those who burn the forest to remove a single tree they do not like or whose natural context they do not understand.