Potential threats to our safety and national security surround us every day, but we give up our blood-bought identity if we shun an entire population because of the actions of a fringe element.
Unfortunately, a broad-based shunning is precisely what Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump proposes in his idea to ban all Muslims from entering the country.
Trump contends that because some terrorist acts have been carried out by Muslim extremists, banning all Muslims from crossing our borders would help keep terror out of our nation.
In doing so, Trump has painted himself as a political extremist, appealing to the nation's lowest element of intelligence and decency.
Consider for a moment if a political leader or candidate had responded in a similar fashion to all the other acts of domestic terrorism we've witnessed perpetrated by non-Muslim culprits.
Have we already forgotten the alleged actions of Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white man who walked into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., on June 17 and opened fire, killing nine people?
Authorities have said Roof, who had white supremacist leanings, targeted victims because they were black.
Yet we didn't see southern black churches institute any bans on young white men from entering their premises in the wake of what was clearly an act of domestic terrorism.
Why? Because it would have flown in the face of their faith and would have been inhuman and un-American to condemn an entire segment of the population based on the acts a fringe element.
What about when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols used a truck loaded with homemade fertilizer explosives to blow up the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995, killing 168 people and injuring nearly 700 others?
Both were white men with white supremacist leanings who often traveled together to gun shows prior to the bombing.
There were no bans on people who fit the profiles of McVeigh or Nichols as a result of the bombings.
Why? Because it's not who we are in our Constitution or in our heritage. Because being a young man who attends gun shows doesn't absolutely equate to terrorism any more than a young man who prays in a mosque.
Anyone supporting Trump's promise to ban Muslims from entering our borders should consider how they would feel or act if a world leader attempted to bar them from citizenship or other types or participation based on their ethnic or racial profile.
In Northwest Indiana, we pride ourselves on the ethnic and religious diversity of our communities. Most of us welcome this diversity with open arms.
The responsibility is on all of us to reject Trump's overtures as he seeks to destroy the very fabric of a nation based on its acceptance of all.
Members of the very Republican Party that Trump seeks to represent on the 2016 presidential ticket already have joined in slamming Trump's plan.
Former GOP Vice President Dick Cheney blasted Trump earlier this week, saying a Muslim ban would go "against everything we stand for."
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, echoed those sentiments.
As Trump plays on our fears of terrorism in the homeland, we shouldn't be distracted from the real threat to our national security — allowing bigoted fear mongering to incinerate our national identity.