Remembering FDR’s Historic Shinto Shrine Speech

We all remember the historic day that FDR, while hosting a Shinto ceremony in the White House during WWII, reminded Americans that everyone had a right to worship as they chose.  Right…?

Of course we don’t remember that act of political suicide, because it never happened.  No one in America would have dreamed of such a thing as we were engaged in a war with not just a people but a warped religious ideology that had brought flame and death to our home in an unprovoked attack.

Of course, in that day, no Japanese-American would have suggested they could, would, or should build a Shinto shrine a block or two from the smoking hulk of the U.S.S. Arizona even as divers sought remains of the dead aboard her.  That would have been an unthinkable affront.