Leaders of Canberra’s Muslim community were surprised and saddened by offensive anti-Islamic pamphlets distributed to homes throughout Queanbeyan over the Christmas holidays.

Almost every year, I end up working on Christmas Day. It’s not that big of a deal, because I don’t celebrate the holiday, and I don’t mind working for my colleagues who do celebrate this holiday. After all, it’s only fair, because they cover for me when I take off for `Eid.

At the end of what city officials referred to as the longest meeting in city history, the City Council early Wednesday morning voted 4-0 to deny an appeal of the Planning Commission’s Dec. 1 approval of the Temecula mosque plans.

Speaking on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the very church where Dr. King once pastored, new Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley gave a speech in which he said that those who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior are not his “brothers.”

When I became a Muslim thirteen years ago this month, I left behind the Christmas traditions my family celebrated every year of my childhood. My mother was able to transform our Southern California home into a Winter Wonderland as soon as we walked in the door.

“Behold! The angels said: ‘O Mary! God giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him. His name will be Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and in (the company of) those nearest to God.'”

President Barack Obama says he’s a “Christian by choice.” Obama says he came to his Christian faith as an adult because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to him in terms of the kind of life he wanted to lead.