Chris Titus, a comedian, had this to say when critiquing the Catholic Church on its handling of pedophile priests:

“It’s time to step up or step aside. My dad taught me that. ‘It’s time to step up or step aside. You don’t get to bitch unless you’re willing to do something about it.’

His critique wasn’t on religion per say, but on how an organization should police itself. Namely, step up and handle the bad apples in your group, or step aside and let the proper authorities handle it for you. The catholic church refused to police itself BUT also refused to let authorities deal with pedophiles, making it easier to condemn as an organization as a whole.

I had a conversation with my friend Jon today, who is an officer in the US Marine Corps. I asked him if he would support and defend a person who knew murdered innocent people just because he was a marine? He of course said he would not. Why do secular organizations seem to have a higher standard of membership than religious ones? Would you sit on your hands and do nothing knowing that the men and women next to you were planning on killing someone in the near future? Would you turn those people into the proper authorities? How does a religion change this attitude?

A decade back I had a controversial US History professor, who’s name eludes me, who was suspended shortly after 9/11 for saying the following to a few Muslim students:

“If you don’t condemn these terrorist attacks, then you support them.”

He was suspended for a few weeks for that statement, but later reinstated after he went on Fox News and complained. At the time, I thought he was just another blowhard old white man letting off some steam. It was a strange time to be an American those few months after 9/11, so I wrote it off as a critique of Islam, and not an organization. It was all the rage to critique Islam at the time. It took more than a decade later, and a terrorist attack on a satirical newspaper in Paris to realize it was a critique about their organization, not their religion.

I’ve started and been part of a myriad of organizations in my lifetime. Boy Scouts, fraternities, corporations, religions, you name it. With every organization, the same rung true: a bad apple spoils the bunch. I had the privilege of starting a fraternity from the ground up while attending college. It took a tremendous amount of time and effort, but in the end we succeeded and its something I am very proud of til this day. Two years after my graduation, my fraternity was gone from campus, wracked by accusations it was abusing alcohol and pledges and hiding a sexual predator among their ranks. No one in the organization stepped up to weed these people out, so they stepped aside. The university expelled the rapist and disbanded the fraternity and I was happy to see it go. It was no longer something I wished to attach my name.

What happened in Paris today was an example of when an organization, Islam, neither steps up nor steps aside. I would have this critique if he was a Christian, a Hindu or a member of the Subway sandwich team. Eleven completely innocent journalists were murdered because the organization of Islam, not the religion, neither stepped up nor stepped aside. While the details are still emerging, a few things are clear: they spoke fluent french, they were heavily armed and equipped, and they did this act in the name of their religion. This isn’t some lone wolf attack we are talking about. I know organization when I see it. The attack was led on a magazine that was publicly threatened for YEARS by Muslims who disagreed with the portrayal of their prophet. YEARS. If this were any organization, the people threatening a satirical magazine would have been expelled years ago for being total and complete assholes. But they were not. Case in point:

For those of you who don’t read french, it basically comes down to “They deserved it.” These are members of the same religion as the attackers. They’ve completely abandoned saying nothing and went straight to support. Any sensible leader of any organization would immediately expel these people from their ranks for being terrible, shitty human beings. But leaders of mosques do not. I’m willing to bet too, as devout Muslims, somewhere along the line a less radical person heard about their plans and did nothing given the organization of the attacks. The attackers are now somewhere in Paris, most likely helped by the shitty people above who cant be bothered to value human life outside their own narrow minded view of it. Someone somewhere didn’t step up or step aside and now 11 people are dead.

You don’t get to complain that these people weren’t “true” Muslims, and that Islam is a religion truly of peace until you expel ever person like the above from your ranks. Every organization, whether it be secular or religious, benefits from a decent house cleaning. Critique is one thing, but Charlie Hebdo never called for the death of anyone, nor danced on anyone’s grave. Just as Pope Francis is cleaning house with the catholic religion, Islam must look to itself to weed out these apples. And if they cannot, someone, eventually, will do it for them.