An American Muslim Journal

Newt Gingrich talks faith — not affairs — at Cornerstone Church in Texas - Politico.com

 

Newt Gingrich stood before thousands of evangelical churchgoers Sunday night to deliver a dire warning that nation's Christian roots are under attack.

"I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9," Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. "I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

via Politico.com

Wow.  I want to be offended by Newt's comments.  I'm sure he was trying to slam my faith.  But for all my efforts to muster up some outrage, all I'm able to get is a smirk, a chuckle and a slight rolling of my eyes.

How stupid does he think the good people of Cornerstone Church are that they will not see the absurdity of "a secular atheist country...dominated by radical Islamists..."?  Obviously Newt thinks they are very stupid.

But then I got to thinking that this church was founded by and is led by Pastor John Hagee.  Who is John Hagee?  Here's a little bit about John Hagee as reported by FORWARD - The Jewish Daily:

On Hurricane Katrina: “All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that… I believe that Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.”

On the Catholic Church: “Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews.”

On Muslims: Asked whether he believes that Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews, Hagee replied, “Well, the Quran teaches that. Yes, it teaches that very clearly.”

On women: “Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”

via FORWARD - The Jewish Daily

Hmmm.  And these folks - reportedly 19,000 - still attend this Cornerstone Church despite their Pastor's checkered history.  Well, maybe that's why Newt could get away with saying the stupid stuff he said.

 

Mike Huckabee is stupid, stupid, stupid for shilling the Eretz Israel shtick

Mike Huckabee is stupid.  No, I did not come to this conclusion just now.  And no, I did not come to this conclusion suddenly.  It took a while.  I had to hear a lot of stupid comments over several years, but now, with his latest stupid comment I felt compelled to make it official.  Huckabee is stupid.

Have a look and listen for yourself.  This is Mike Huckabee in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, a part of Palestine, at some ground-breaking ceremony for another illegal Israeli settlement:

There is part of what Huckabee said in this clip (quoted from TMP):

I cannot imagine as an American being told that I could not live in certain places in America because I was Christian, or because I was white, or because I spoke English," Huckabee said. "I would be outraged if someone told me that in my country, I would be prohibited and forbidden to live in a part of that country, for any reason. 

Well Mike, since you put it that way, I'm guessing you'll understand why Palestinians are unhappy that their land is being taken by Israel and unlawfully annexed for the use of its citizens.  Right?! 

Israelis and Jews absolutely have the right to live in peace.  But so to do the Palestinians.  So why do American politicians go over to Israel and pander to the extremist Israelis who are aggressively pushing their way into the West Bank?  Don't even bother trying to explain it.  It's called shilling the Eretz Israel shtick for campaign dollars.

In the end this pandering to the extremist elements of Israel is counter-productive to bringing about a negotiated peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.  We Americans care about this conflict and about bringing peace and stability to that part of the world because we need to diffuse one of the most potent and valid complaints harbored by the Arab street (American bias against Palestinians) which will, in turn, further dilute the recruiting power of violent extremists.

Oh, and please save the blather about Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East.  Recent events make it abundantly clear that Arabs want democracy but the despots who oppress them have a lot of nifty weapons to keep them down.  I heard that the tear gas used to quell peaceful Egyptian protesters over the past 8 days came from us (American).

 

Muhammad Ali Hasan joins the Democratic Party after bad experiences with Republicans

I've never heard of this fellow - Muhammad Ali Hasan - but apparently he's very well known in Colorado, and among Republicans, and according to the Colorado Independent Mr. Hasan has switched parties and is now a Democrat.  From one reformed Republican to another I say to Mr. Hasan - Welcome to the party!

The Colorado Independent describes Mr. Hasan this way:

Muhammad Ali Hasan, a member of the wealthy and influential Colorado Republican Hasan family and a past state House and treasurer candidate, said he is switching parties. Speaking at the University of Colorado-Boulder on his experience growing up Muslim in the American West and later in conversation with the Colorado Independent, Hasan said he is ending his affiliation with the party for the bigotry he believes has shaped Republican politics over the last year. The FOX News regular and founder of Muslims for Bush said he met recently with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the controversial Democratic leader won him over.

The only question I have for Mr. Hasan is why it took him so long to see the light?  This article says that he found bigotry shaping Republican politics over the last year.  What!?  This bigotry goes back a lot longer than just the past year Mr. Hasan!

The bigotry of the past year may be the most virulent it has ever been, but it has been within the Republican Party for a long time prior.  And at the end of the day the bigotry against Muslims is simply not an important enough issue (for them politically) to cause otherwise good and decent people within the Republican Party to raise their voices against this ugliness.

I've met Republican politicians in my life and thankfully I can say that many of them were not anti-Muslim or anti-Islam.  At the same time, I know that these folks opted not to raise their voices when other fellow Republicans - individually and sometimes through the Republican Party - said or did bigoted things. This notion that the bigotry is new within the Republican Party is a silly notion.

I know that there are other, more well known, American Muslims who have committed themselves to public service and still view themselves as Republicans.  I applaud them for their fortitude, and I suspect that they look beyond the ill-conceived policies of the day and focus more on the core principles that underpin their conservatism.

One person that comes to mind when thinking about principled American Muslim members of the Republican Party is  Suhail Khan.  Mr. Khan has served in many capacities for a range of Republican politicians and in various conservative policy positions.

I guess what I'm saying is that Muhammad Ali Hasan's change of political affiliation is not really all that noteworthy.  He was never a very significant figure within the Republican Party and his reasons for leaving the party are fairly pedestrian.  It remains to be seen what Mr. Hasan can accomplish as a Democrat.  What he does from this point forward is what may be truly newsworthy.

In the end I wish them all well - the Muhammad Ali Hasans and the Suhail Khans - because they are putting themselves out there and doing yeoman's work in the area of American Muslim civic engagement. 

Renee Ellmers thinks all Muslims are terrorists...um, unless each one can prove otherwise?

 

Renee Ellmers is the republican candidate for Congress in North Carolina.  She thinks all Muslims are terrorists.  Watch her campaign ad and her interview with Anderson Cooper and see and hear for yourself.

Wow.  Her position is that since she doesn't know that the Muslims involved with Park51 aren't terrorists, then it makes sense to presume that they are terrorists.

I wonder if that twisted reasoning applies across the board or just with Muslims?  It really doesn't matter how she answers this question, does it?

Shame on Ellmers.  And shame on the people in her district who embolden her to use this garbage in her campaign.

As an aside, I read her bio and learned that she is a mother.  I feel sorry for her boy (she speaks of her son in her bio).  A parent who espouses these views will likely impart these biases to her children.  Someone call child protective services.

Glenn Beck contradicts himself again, praises Dr. King and slams Obama for having the same religious outlook

Everyone knows that Glenn Beck talks about of both sides of his mouth.  At his rally over the weekend he wanted to bring our country "back to God" or "closer to God" and then later, after the rally, used the media attention from his little stunt to continue attacking President Obama's faith.

Today's Seattle Times reported this:

Beck, on his Fox News show last Tuesday, said that liberation theology is at the core of Obama's "belief structure."

"You see, it's all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation. I don't know what that is, other than it's not Muslim, it's not Christian. It's a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it," Beck said.

Really Mr. Beck?  Is that what it is?  So, any faithful Christian who is concerned about the poor and about economic injustice is engaged in a "perversion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ"?

I wonder what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would think about that Mr. Beck?  Weren't you supposedly trying to honor Dr. King with you tea party rally today?

Well, the good news is, this duplicity by Glenn Beck will eventually make its way onto the John Stewart show and provide us all with a lot of laughs!

Hutaree Militia - Right Wing Extremists - Targeting American Muslims?

 (a photo of Hutaree's 'Christian Warriors')

That extremists Christians on the far Right would see American Muslims as the enemy is nothing new.  Given that Timothy McVeigh massacred over one hundred Christians in Oklahoma City (along with other innocent Americans of other faiths), it should surprise no one that Right Wing militias would target American Muslims.  Honestly, it is a matter of when and not if.

News reports in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times and the Detroit Free Press are all reporting that a fanatical Christian organization called Hutaree (they consider themselves Christian Warriors preparing to battle the Beast in the coming End Times) has been the target of federal investigators and that over the weekend arrests have been made in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.  In Illinois the arrest was made in Clarendon Hills according to the Chicago Sun Times.

Last November I wrote on this blog (click here to read that post) that we need to wary of extremist warmongers and that our concern should extend beyond Al Qaeda and to the right wing militias that seem to operate feely across our country.  At the time I wrote:

You know who these folks are - they are the people you see at rallies and protests, they are the screwballs who call into right-wing talk radio and lace their anti-Muslim diatribes with "God Bless America", "Amen" and "Yee Haa" and they are the entertainers pretending to be pundits and journalists on Faux News and on America Right satellite radio and are on the donor rolls of extremist Christian leaders like Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham.  They are the people shaving their heads and putting bedsheets on their heads and getting swastikas tattooed on their bodies.  They are the people bombing abortion clinics, killing doctors, going on shooting rampages against anyone who is not White and who target non-Christians with gun violence and random thuggery.  They have the blogs that rightly decry Al Qaeda organized violence and then go one indict every other Muslim for good measure.

These extremist Americans have more in common with Al Qaeda than with the rest of America.  Instead of allowing Americans to close ranks and deal with the fanaticism of Al Qaeda together, their hate ideology is extremely effective in keeping American Muslims off balance and consistently in a defensive posture.  Instead of spending time rooting out extremism, hours and hours of time is spent by American Muslims telling America who they are and what they believe.

We will see later today (Monday, 3/29/10) what the indictments allege about these wackos.  Dawud Walid, the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan was contacted by journalists for comment according to the Detroit Free Press.  Why was the Muslim community contacted for comment and not, say for example, the Jewish community or leaders of the Gay and Lesbian community, in this instance?  Perhaps it is because this particular investigation involved plots of violence against fellow Americans within the Muslim community?

I don't know the answer to that but I am concerned.  Whether their targets turn out to be Muslims, Jews, other Christians, gays, immigrants or others, I will remain equally concerned.

Good people need to stand up to this hatred, violence and bigotry right now.  The world's most free and most tolerant society - the United States of America - has allowed religious extremists using Islam as a cover to retard and stunt the growth and development of the Great American Experiment of creating a more perfect nation based on democracy within a religiously, culturally and ethnically plural citizenry.

The tragedy of 9/11 has made us less critical of bigotry in our dialogue and it has allowed us to be less vigilant in protecting our civil liberties.  In that more permissive environment hate groups of varying stripes seem to now be flourishing.  The Hutaree's so-called "Chrisitan Warriors" happen to be the group that's caught our attention today but there are lots of others out there and we need to be wary of them.