RELIGIOUS FREEDOM/ All-American Muslims

This week I was doing some research on the current interpretations of the right to religious liberty as found in the American Constitution and it occurred to me to watch a new TV show that, I thought, would bring the issue to the level of ordinary Americans living in such a religiously pluralistic society, I had in mind the show "All-American Muslim" on the cable station "The Learning Channel (TLC)."

The show is one of three extremely popular "reality" shows with real people, no prepared script, and presumably no manufactured situations-at least not too many. The show, which debuted Sunday night, follows five Muslim-American families in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the nation's largest mosque. The premiere delved into the effects of the Muslim faith on these Americans' lives, focusing on the impending wedding of Shadia, a tattooed  and pierced young Muslim woman, and Jeff, her "happily clueless" (in the words of a reviewer)Irish Catholic beau. The show isn't overly preachy, instead using a fairly neutral tone to satisfy viewers' curiosity about Muslims, especially when it comes to the wedding of Shadia and Jeff. As social commentary that still manages to entertain, All-American Muslim tells "a story that hasn't been told very often on American television."  This is a "kinder, gentler reality show," says Christian Toto at Big Hollywood. Perhaps too kind: It can sometimes "feel like an extended public relations video" designed to show viewers that Muslim families are normal and not to be feared. While the show is honest enough about "less flattering components of the Islamic faith."

Many reviewers suggested that the producers may have gone overboard in their effort to keep All-American Muslim from "becoming The Real Housewives of Dearborn," says Hank Steuver at The Washington Post. The show's stars were obviously cast "for their exemplary civic and cultural pride" rather than their "propensity to throw down or scream insults." And the result is "assiduously straightforward and careful" to a fault. All-American Muslim celebrates the unalienable right of Islamic families "to be as dull as anybody else."

What does this have to do with the political and legal debate on the meaning of religious freedom taking place in America these days? Maybe nothing; maybe everything.

It has been said that, unlike European nihilism, American nihilism seeks to make God socially irrelevant, not by promoting unbelief, but by believing everything about Him (or Her) so as to reduce the experience of the Mystery to a psychological emotion with no content, thus eliminating its divisiveness.

This, then, is what religious liberty is coming to mean in certain circles of American society: the right to be as dull as anybody else, or as clueless as the Irish Catholic groom in the show.