What Constitution? Anti-Muslim Rep. in North Carolina Pushes for Christian Prayer in Government Meetings

Should local officials be able to start their meetings with prayers that endorse a particular faith? North Carolina State Rep. Michele Presnell thinks so, with one tiny caveat: the faith endorsed must be her own. When asked by one of her constituents whether she would be comfortable with a prayer to Allah before a public meeting, Presnell responded, “No, I do not condone terrorism.”

Despite the disturbing anti-Islamic bigotry in her statement, this illustrates the problem with these religion-specific prayers: someone is always going to be excluded or offended by them, and they can’t possibly account for everyone’s beliefs.

No one should be made to feel like a second-class citizen by his or her own local government, but for the past six years the Rowan County Board of Commissioners have sidelined and excluded Americans of other faiths through the systematic use of prayers specific to only one religion – Christianity.

As if that weren’t enough of a reason to stop or change the prayers, the practice is blatantly unconstitutional. The government generally can’t sponsor prayer at all, but the Supreme Court has carved out a narrow exception to this rule that allows legislative bodies, like a county board, to open meetings with invocations, so long as they do not promote one faith over others.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE ACLU BLOG 

Egypt blocks YouTube over anti-Islam film

A Cairo court has ordered the government to block access to the video-sharing website YouTube for a month for carrying an anti-Islam film that caused deadly riots across the world.

Judge Hassouna Tawfiq ordered on Saturday Youtube’s suspension in the country over the film, which he described as “offensive to Islam and the Prophet (Muhammad)”.

Tawfiq made the ruling in the Egyptian capital where the first protests against the film erupted last September before spreading to more than 20 countries, leading to the deaths of more than 50 people.

YouTube’s parent company, Google, declined requests to remove the video from the website last year, but restricted access to it in certain countries, including Egypt, Libya and Indonesia, because it says the video broke laws in those countries.

At the height of the protests in September, YouTube was ordered blocked in several countries, including Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah issued an order blocking all websites with access to the anti-Islam film in the kingdom.

2012: Another Hard Year for American Muslims

 A woman tells police she shoved a man to his death off a New York subway platform into the path of a train because she hates Muslims and thought he was one.

- A former Marine from Indiana admits that he broke into a mosque in Ohio and set fire to a prayer rug because he wanted revenge for the killings of American troops overseas.

- New York Times says the 9/11 attacks have led to what’s essentially a separate justice system for Muslims. In this system, the principle of due process is twisted and selectively applied, if it is applied at all.

- In the spirit of interfaith, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a leading civil advocacy group holds its annual convention at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California amid fierce criticism of the church by Islamophobes

These episodes reflect the dilemma of the seven-million strong American Muslim community which remains under siege more than 11 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York Trade Center and Pentagon.

On December 29, the American Muslim community was shocked at the horrendous murder of Sunando Sen, who was pushed by a women to his death on the tracks of a New York subway station because she thought he was Muslim. “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I’ve been beating them up,” Erika Menendez, 31, told police. She was charged with second degree murder as hate crime. India-born Sunando Sen was raised as Hindu. The murder of Sen at a New York Subway Station of Queens comes only weeks after Pamela Geller placed hate-ads targeting the Arab and Muslim community in subway stations across New York.  One of the ads insinuated that Arab and Muslims are “savages” and another ad has an image of the World Trade Center exploding next to a quote from the Quran.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS

The Myth of the Murderous Muslim

by Haroon Moghul

Muslims are subversive jihadists. The Middle East is perpetually unstable. “Islam has bloody borders.” If you’ve already made up your mind, you’ll find a way to twist the facts to support your conclusion. And if the facts don’t do the job, you can always hire new ones.

In the last year, American anti-Muslim hate groups have increased threefold. As playwright Wajahat Ali and others have found, the farther we move away from the September 11 terrorist attacks, the worse discrimination, prejudice and violence against Muslims become.

There’s a simple enough reason for this: Islamophobia has become an industry. In the absence of alternative narratives, which can make sense of Muslim extremism, place it into context and guide American domestic and foreign policy, we are stuck with the voices we have – too often, these have been unqualified and uninformed.

It will take us a long time to get past the damage done by years of well-funded Islamophobes, who have dominated the media landscape (finally answering, incidentally, why it is that “Muslims don’t do more to condemn terrorism” – nobody was listening). But the resistance to bigotry has already begun and has already scored a number of successes.

There is only so long, after all, you can lie to people.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE AMERICAN MUSLIM 

‘Muslim Bias’ Investigation Instead Finds Christian Bias In Texas District’s Curriculum

A chain email sent to Dallas-area school board members and district officials thatprompted an investigation into alleged Islamic bias in the system’s curriculum turned up perhaps unintended results.

The email, titled “IRVING ISD INDOCTRINATING ISLAM,” warned: “Christians are going to have to stand up against the pro Islamic teaching in our public schools with CSCOPE curriculum.”

CSCOPE is a nonprofit offshoot of the Texas Education Service Centers, established in 1965 across the state’s school districts, and helps develop curricula and implement school reform. The agency is reported to have received about $25 million in funding last year.

According to The Dallas Morning News, the resulting 72-page report – compiled by a former social studies teacher described by CSCOPE’s director as a “very socially and fiscally conservative” woman who “watches Glenn Beck on a regular basis” — found quite the opposite of any Islamic bias: If anything, Irving schools have a Christian bias.

The teacher was told to “look for anything she would consider the least bit controversial,” by reading every textbook used for kindergarten through high school and record any bias in the CSCOPE curriculum, according to the Morning News.

Among the findings:

• Christianity got twice as much attention in the curriculum as any other religion. Islam was a distant second.
• The Red Crescent and Boston Tea Party reference mentioned in the email were nowhere in CSCOPE’s curriculum, although they may have been in the past.
• If there was any Islamic bias in CSCOPE it was “bias against radical Islam.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST 

South Carolina: Walmart employee fired after abusing Muslim co-worker and threatening to cut her throat

ROCK HILL — A Rock Hill Walmart employee was fired Saturday after police say she grabbed a co-worker’s arm, threatened to cut her throat and called her an anti-Muslim, derogatory name, according to a police report.

Police spoke with the victim, 23, who said she was on her break at the Walmart on Old York Road and tried to buy some items, according to a Rock Hill police report. While in the checkout line, a co-worker stepped behind her but tried to check out first by skipping in front of the woman and moving her items.

The two employees began to argue before the co-worker called the victim a derogatory, anti-Muslim name. She grabbed the woman’s arm twice and said she was going to cut her throat, the victim told police.

FULL ARTICLE FROM ISLAMOPHOBIA TODAY

Book Report: The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufacturers Fear of Muslims (Nathan Lean)

by Alex Kane

Ahmed Sharif was a 44-year-old Muslim Bangladeshi taxi driver in New York City. It was August 24, 2010, a time that marked the height of vitriolic protests against a planned Islamic center to be located in lower Manhattan, a few blocks away from the site of Ground Zero. Sharif picked up 21-year-old Michael Enright for an early evening ride. Everything was going smoothly until Enright, three blocks away from his stop, yelled at Sharif, “this is a checkpoint, motherfucker, and I have to bring you down.”

Enright, a filmmaker who kept a diary filled with strong anti-Muslim sentiment, pulled out a knife and slashed Sharif across the throat, face and arms. Enright tried to escape, but was arrested by the New York Police Department. Sharif survived, but he packed up and moved to Buffalo, in upstate New York. It was a crime that seemed to fit in with the general climate of hysteria over Muslims that developed that summer.

This is how Nathan Lean begins telling the story of how a small group of bigots seized upon the frustrations and fears of post-9/11 America and exploited those feelings to create a circular industry of hate. Lean’s new book, The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims, is a compact and punchy look at this industry stretching across continents that has sowed hatred of Muslims into the fabric of Western society.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE AMERICAN MUSLIM

Federal authorities question man who may be anti-Muslim filmmaker

Last Updated 7:04 a.m. ET

(CBS News) LOS ANGELES – The filmmaker who may be behind the anti-Islamic movie that sparked widespread protests in the Muslim world against the U.S., some of which turned violent, was escorted from his Cerritos, Calif., home shortly after midnight local time Saturday by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies.

CBS station KCBS video showed Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, with a hat on and towel around his face, and wearing winter jacket in the L.A. summer heat, being escorted from the suburban L.A. house.

Nakoula, a self-described Coptic Christian, is thought to be the filmmaker behind “Innocence of Muslims.”

The Sheriff’s Department told KCBS it is assisting federal authorities with an investigation they’re conducting, for questioning on a possible violation of his parole..

“Nobody is arrested. Nobody is detained. Nobody is in custody,” said a, L.A. Sheriff’s Dept. spokesperson.

Reuters reports deputies say Nakoula left his home voluntarily.

Nakoula was convicted in 2010 of bank fraud, and was not allowed to use the Internet.

FULL ARTICLE FROM CBS NEWS 

Anti-American fury over film hits Australia; protesters clash with police

(CNN) – The fury over an anti-Islam film that targeted American diplomatic missions has spread to include a number of other Western facilities in the Muslim world, raising the specter Saturday of a widening protest.

Attacks on German and British embassies in Sudan, the ransacking of an American school in Tunisia, a fire at a U.S.-based fast-food restaurant in Lebanon and attacks against multi-national peacekeepers in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula were among the latest targets in protests that turned violent.

Top Western diplomats warned leaders in countries where the unrest has been most pronounced to ensure the protection of its missions and its people.

“I am following the unfolding events with grave concern and call on national authorities in all countries concerned to swiftly ensure the security of diplomatic mission and protect diplomatic staff,” Catherine Ashton, the European Union foreign affairs chief, said in a statement.

“It is vitally important leaders across the affected regions should call immediately for peace and restraint.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM CNN 

Anti-American protests spread in Muslim world

Updated 6:08 p.m. ET

(CBS/AP) Worldwide Muslim anger over a film mocking Islam’s prophet continued to spread Thursday, prompting President Barack Obama to issue a warning to countries where Americans may be in danger. President Obama, speaking at a re-election campaign rally in Golden, Colorado, said his administration had been in contact with other governments “to let them know they’ve got a responsibility to protect our citizens.” The president also said on Thursday: “I’ve directed my administration to do whatever is necessary to protect all Americans serving abroad”. American diplomatic offices everywhere have seen their security beefed up, and there are contracted aircraft being kept on the runways in major cities so that they can ferry out evacuated personnel.

The spreading violence comes as outrage grows over an obscure movie made in the United States called “Innocence of Muslims” that mocked Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.  The first of the protests against the film began in Cairo, Egypt, outside of the U.S. Embassy there, on Tuesday. Protesters rushed embassy grounds, taking down and tearing up the American flag flying at half-mast in commemoration of 9/11 before security forces turned them away.

FULL ARTICLE FROM CBS NEWS (INCLUDING VIDEO CLIP)