"So don't be depressed," he said.
Buckhorn was there to offer full-throated support of the region's Muslim residents, who are constantly dealing with a barrage of hate from those who associate members of the major world religion with acts of terror, including a president who banned refugees and travelers from majority Muslim countries.
“This city has your back,” Buckhorn told those gathered. “[Tampa] is a place, and I've told you before many, many times that we will never demonize anybody based on your race or your creed or your color or your ethnicity or the god you worship. All of us came from somewhere else.”
Buckhorn said his ancestors fled persecution and famine in Ireland, as many families had, and that those fleeing horrific conditions in Syria and other places should ever be scrutinized for their religion. He likened the U.S.'s tradition of embracing opening its doors to all to a mosaic.
"Your community is a shining part of that mosaic. You are us,” he said. “And for anybody, including the president of the United States, to demonize any religion, and make no mistake, they can call it what it is, but it's a ban. It's an attack on Islam as a religion. It's not vetting. It's singling out a single religion, and specific countries. We don't have a litmus test that's based on religion in America. We never have and we never will. It is wrong.”
His remarks come a week after a sweeping travel ban the Trump Administration imposed, one that disproportionately impacts people of the Muslim faith. Tens of thousands of people were affected by the ban, even though not one resident from the countries most profoundly affected has engaged in terroristic acts on U.S. soil."
"That is not what we're all about, and we will stand up. We will stand up. Enough is enough,” Buckhorn said. “You are our friends, you are our brothers. We may worship a different god, but we all believe in something that is bigger than ourselves. That is, this country, and each other.
A young attendee named Sané, who didn't give a last name and said she moved to Tampa from Morocco a year ago, said she was heartened by Buckhorn's words.
“What he said, for me, was so great," she said. "Not just for this country, but for humanity.”
So, too, were Tampa Tech sophomores Samé Saleh and Zena Omar.
“We need to come together and unify from all races and religions," Omar said. "Just because a president got elected doesn't mean we can't work together and be united. That's what America is. It's diverse, but we have to work together.”
Despite the political climate, which seems to invoke Islamaphobia in many Americans, the two high school students said they have not come across any anti-Muslim bullying at their school.
“In world history, they teach the students about Islam. So when they see students with hijab, they ask us to teach them about it, too,” Saleh said.
Outside the mosque, Rev. Russell Meyer chatted with a congregation leader.
He said he was there to show solidarity with Muslims, something he said any patriotic American would do.
“I'm practicing what American patriotism really is," he said. "At the heart of that is supporting your neighbor and your neighbor's freedom of conscience. That is bedrock Americanism. Secondly, as a Christian, it's very important that I help create the space to help people to know God as God has led them.”
He said he hopes widespread fear of Muslims gives way to compassion.
“The fear of the other is a native kind of human experience. And it gets gets layered with various religious traditions," he said. "But every religious tradition understands the necessity of hospitality to the stranger. God is other than us, and God can come to us through strangers. And so if we are not hospitable to strangers, we could close ourselves off from God. This is a tenet you find in almost every religion.”
This article appears in Feb 2-9, 2017.