Rev Taigen Dan Leighton Statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day:
The Nazi Holocaust involved elected leaders scapegoating a minority, the Jewish people, to enforce their brutal rule, and rounding up Jewish people into concentration camps, or “holocaust centers” as the current Press Secretary calls them. Gays and gypsies and those who helped the endangered were also included by the Nazis, and many millions murdered.
Now in our country our current administration supported by our congress is targeting Muslims and planning a Muslim registry. Already it is not stopping with one minority. LatinAmerican immigrants are endangered. African-Americans suffering from racist mass incarceration policies are now threatened with more privatized, for-profit prisons. Healthcare for women and the elderly is threatened. Refugees fleeing from wars created by our invasions and U.S. weapon systems and fleeing the climate damage created by our fossil fuel industry now are detained in camps and not allowed into our country that used to be a haven to immigrants.
Our government and the billionaire profiteers who run it are in the process of creating a new holocaust.
All of us who represent true spiritual and ethical values, and the values our country claims to be founded on, must now speak out. All people including minorities and people of all religions must be protected from deportation and discrimination. We cannot remain silent in the midst of attacks against minorities. We speak for love, not hatred, and for peace and cooperation between all peoples.
Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton
Soto Zen Buddhist priest