Singling Out Islam: Newt Gingrich’s Pandering Attacks

It’s interesting to observe what qualifies as beyond the pale in American politics. For bigoted newsletters written two decades ago, Ron Paul is deemed by many to be disqualified from the presidency. I don’t fault anyone for criticizing those newsletters. I’ve done so myself. They’re terrible. So is the way he’s handled the controversy. But isn’t it interesting that Paul has been more discredited by years-old, ghostwritten remarks than has Newt Gingrich for bigotry that he’s uttered himself, on camera, during the present campaign? It’s gone largely ignored both in the mainstream press and the movement-conservative organs that were most vocal condemning Paul.

That’s because Muslims are the target. And despite the fact that George W. Bush was admirably careful to avoid demonizing a whole religious faith for the actions of a small minority of its adherents — despite the fact that Barack Obama too has been beyond reproach in this respect — anti-Muslim bigotry in America is treated differently than every other kind, often by the very same people who allege without irony that there is a war in this country against Christians.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE ATLANTIC 

 

Oklahoma Launches Anti Immigrant, Anti Muslim Crusade

Oklahoma has relatively few immigrants – about 5 percent of the population – but it has long been in the vanguard of anti-immigrant and more recently anti-Muslim legislation of the type sweeping the nation.

Last fall more than 70 percent of voters passed a constitutional amendment outlawing the use of Sharia law in Oklahoma courts, and state legislators have also pushed anti-Sharia laws, even though the Muslim legal code has never been introduced in an Oklahoma courtroom. On June 14 the Oklahoma state Supreme Court upheld most provisions of the state’s strict anti-immigrant law, passed in 2007 and seen as a precursor to Arizona’s infamous legislation. And this year Oklahoma City state senator Ralph Shortey introduced a suite of anti-immigrant laws including one billed as “Arizona Plus.”

Shortey is Native American and as a child lived on a South Dakota reservation. He said that’s one of the reasons he wants to send a message to undocumented immigrants that they are “not welcome” in Oklahoma. In March Shortey told a group of reporters with the Institute for Justice and Journalism that he knows what it feels like to have one’s land stolen, and he doesn’t want it to happen again through an influx of undocumented immigrants.

Cain’s Message – Muslims Need Not Apply

Editor’s note: Dean Obeidallah is an award-winning comedian who has appeared on various TV shows including Comedy Central’s “Axis of Evil” special, ABC’s “The View,” and CNN’s “What the Week” and “The Joy Behar Show.” He is executive producer of the annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival and The Amman Stand Up Comedy Festival. Follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) – Herman Cain, Republican presidential candidate and winner of this year’s Arizona and Georgia Tea Party straw polls, has a campaign slogan: “Lets Get Real.”

So I guess he was just keeping it real when he recently declared that he was not “comfortable” appointing an American-Muslim to his Cabinet or to a federal judgeship

FULL ARTICLE FROM CNN

Radical Tennessee Senator Targets Mild Mannered Muslim Professor

A young man sporting a coiffed block of dirty-blond hair steps to the microphone. He asks whether Professor Binhazim is still in the room, before fixing his eyes on the man seated in front of him. Of course Awadh Binhazim is still here. He’s a panelist at the Jan. 25, 2010, discussion on Vanderbilt’s campus — an event since watched by tens of thousands of viewers on YouTube.

The young man launches into a question, which he reads from a card:

“Given the recent controversy surrounding homosexuals in the military, under Islamic law, if a homosexual person began to actually engage in homosexual relations in an ongoing and permanent way with no intention of quitting, then the punishment under Islamic law would be death — unless, you know, he agreed to quit. As a practicing Muslim, do you accept or reject this particular teaching of Islam?”

You know where this is going. The camera trains on Binhazim — an olive-skinned man with a polite haircut and trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, wearing a dark suit jacket, dark shirt and tie — for the gotcha moment.

Instead, Binhazim winds into a three-minute, highly nuanced response. The questioner tries to interrupt. He just needs Binhazim, the adjunct Muslim chaplain at Vanderbilt, to say Islam requires him to believe in the killing of gays and lesbians; then he can get out of here.

FULL ARTICLE FROM NASHVILLESCENE.COM

Republicans in Tennessee to Honor Notorious Islam Hater: CAIR Requests That They Don’t

WASHINGTON, May 12, 2011 – Notorious Islamophobe Geert Wilders to be honored at Republican luncheon

WASHINGTON, May 12, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on state and national GOP leaders to repudiate a Tennessee event at which party officials will honor one of the world’s leading Islam-haters, extremist Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

A luncheon in Wilders’ honor will reportedly be held today at Williamson County Republican Party headquarters in Franklin, Tenn. Wilders is in Tennessee at the invitation of a group headed by former congressional candidate Lou Ann Zelenik, who once claimed that the construction of a new mosque would pose a threat to that state’s “moral and political foundation.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE SACRAMENTO BEE