In light of the proposed Koran burning in Florida, an interfaith group of clerics held a news conference yesterday to warn of a growing "Islamophobia" among the U.S. population.
But that can hardly be thought to be the case in West Rogers Park, where two Western Avenue banks actually lend their facilities to nearby mosques.
The managers the Chase branch at 7015 N. Western Ave. and the First Commercial branch at 7050 N. Western Avenue, have granted free use of their parking lots to the nearby Bosnian Islamic Cultural Center and the Sharia Board of America.
Banks are customarily among the most risk averse of businesses when it comes to controversy.
So tacitly, the managers of these outlets, one Adolfo Sesma at Chase and one Javeria Atcha at First Commercial, seem to be asserting that there is no risk of "Islamophobic" backlash from their West Rogers Park customers.
Interestingly, when a Lutheran Evangelical Church and a Gay United Church of Christ congregation inhabited the same building now used by the Sharia Board of America, the same offer of free parking wasn't proferred.
So not only is West Rogers Park, in the view of Chase Bank and First Commercial Bank not "Islamophobic."
Led by the enlightened multiculturalists, Sesma and Atcha, it's positively "Islamophiliac."
