Salaam alaykum. Peace be unto you. Good evening.
Before we begin our discussion, I want to offer some good news.
The day before the 2012 presidential election there were 11 members of Congress routinely making use of anti-Muslim themes. (The full report on the electoral fate of the anti-Muslim caucus can be seen here.)
Four of them will not be returning to Congress in January.
Florida’s Allen West, who claims Islam is not a religion and asserts that Muslims are a “fifth column,” lost his race. Be assured that Muslims played a role in bringing about that electoral defeat.
Similarly, Illinois’s Joe Walsh, who cast suspicion on all Muslims, and Minnesota’s Chip Cravaack, who asserted that a mainstream Muslim organization was a terrorist group, lost their races.
Finally, Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina retired. A few years ago she held a press conference where she alleged that Muslim interns on Capitol Hill were spies. You may also recall her 2003 warning about a previously unnoticed security threat because, "You know, look at who runs all the convenience stores across the country. Every little town you go into, you know?”
I have one other item of good news. Islam’s favorability rating, last time it was polled in 2010, stood at 30 percent according to Pew Research Center.
As of August,
2012 Congress’s favorability rating is 10 percent.
We are still more
popular than Congress.
Upholding the Constitution
We here tonight
are among those who are on the front lines of protecting the Constitution from
people who, selling anti-Muslim stereotypes and fear, seek to return America to
a legal system that treats one group of Americans as different from others.
Worse, if you pay
attention to Islamophobes like Pamela Geller or David Yerushalmi, there are
those who appear to seek the rebirth of South African apartheid with religion
as its new targeted class.
Indulge me, please, while I offer proof of what I just said.
Anti-Islam
Legislation
First, we will
look at efforts to legislate government-sanctioned discrimination against
Muslims.
In 2011 and 2012,
78 bills or amendments aimed at interfering with Islamic religious practices
were considered in 31 states and the U.S. Congress.
Sixty-two of
these bills contained language that was extracted from Islamophobe David
Yerushalmi’s American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) model legislation.
(As an aside: An
internet search of “David Yerushalmi” returns results demonstrating his call
for a “WAR AGAINST ISLAM and all the Muslim faithful.” You will also see his
anti-woman, anti-black and similarly biased comments on the first results page.
It is reasonable to be alarmed that a man so central to that anti-Islam hate
movement in the United States is able to have real impact on legislators.)
73 of these bills
were introduced solely by Republicans. Not just fringe legislators, but in too
many cases this included state-level GOP party leadership.
Bills were signed
into law in Arizona, Kansas, South Dakota, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Louisiana.
I want you to be
clear that this anti-Sharia movement is really a cover for Islamophobic
sentiment.
In Tennessee, the
original bill’s definition of “Sharia” was, in practical terms, the entire
religious tradition of Islam. It stated
that “Sharia” encompasses all content derived from “any of the authoritative
schools of Islamic jurisprudence of Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali,
Ja’afariya, or Salafi.”
They wanted to make being a Muslim illegal in Tennessee.
South Dakota anti-Islam bill sponsor Phil Jensen (R-District 33) told an audience, “It is alarming how many of our sisters and daughters who attend American universities are now marrying Muslim men.”
In Pennsylvania, the bill itself included no mention of Islam. However, in a memo to all House members urging them to co-sponsor the bill, Rep. Rosemarie Swanger (R-District 102) falsely claimed that Sharia is "inherently hostile to our constitutional liberties."
Later, Swanger claimed she “had no idea how [the memo] was going to be written” and that it was never circulated. Swanger also claimed that it was leaked by “someone who is not my friend.”(iv)
As you may have
already concluded, these legislators frequently have no idea what they are
talking about.
The Star
Assistant in Alabama reported, “But no one—not even Sen. Gerald Allen, who
sponsored the bill—can point to examples of Muslims trying to have Islamic law
recognized in Alabama courts.”(viii)
That inability to point to actual examples is a pattern by the way.
Allen could not even define Sharia. When asked he said, “I don’t have my file in front of me.”
When pressed about why the Alabama bill’s definition of sharia matched one found in Wikipedia, Allen’s legislative staff “confirmed that the definition was in fact pulled from Wikipedia.”
Now college
students that I know tell me that Wikipedia is not a valid citation in their
papers. I find it intriguing that it is, however, a valid source for things
that may become the law of the land.
Texas legislator
Leo Berman said his bill was necessary because he had heard, but apparently had
not actually tried to confirm, that one American town was allowing judges to
use sharia. “I heard it on a radio station here on my way into the Capitol one
day. I don’t know Dearborn, Michigan but I heard it [Sharia law is accepted
there] on the radio. Isn’t that true?”
The Kansas City
Star’s Jason Noble reported that anti-Islam bill sponsors, “Missouri Reps. Paul
Curtman and Don Wells agree there’s no evidence that state courts are judging
cases based on Islamic principles of foreign laws.” Challenged again a month
later, Curtman still could not provide an example.
Missouri Speaker
of the House Stephen Tilley also “could not provide an example of foreign law
trumping domestic law in Missouri courts,” reported Politicalmo.com. The
article noted that Tilley’s office later issued a statement outlining one case
in New Jersey, but that poor ruling--which in fact received no support from
Muslim groups because it involved a man claiming it was his religious right to
rape his wife--was rightfully overturned by a higher court.
The news here is
fairly straightforward: Yes, they have passed anti-Islam laws in six states.
Yes, they will try again in 2013. But by upholding the Constitution, we can
preserve everyone’s liberty.
CAIR is in the
forefront of asserting this principle of free religious exercise. The
Constitution is the law of the land and we like it that way. We agree with
people of the Jewish and Catholic faiths, who already have an established
tradition of using religious mediation, that, within the law, we are free to
make choices in accordance with our faith.
In accordance
with Islam, my marriage contract required me to pay a mahr to my wife. Why
anyone would be upset with a woman getting money up front that is hers to
invest as she sees fit I have no clue.
In accordance
with Islam, my home financing involves no interest. Similarly, my financial
investment strategy avoids putting money into gambling, pornography and weapons
manufacturing. I have no idea why anyone would think such things are a threat
to American democracy.
So let’s turn
back to the anti-Islam legislation.
CAIR’s lawsuit
against Oklahoma’s anti-Islam constitutional amendment asserts that the law
would violate the First Amendment, which says no law can be passed that
promotes or vilifies a particular religion, and the Supremacy clause, which
says the Constitution is and will remain the highest law of the land.
Interestingly, CAIR gets accused of trying to subvert the Constitution while we
are making these arguments this constitutionally-subversive legislation.
So far, four federal judges have ruled in our favor and that law is on hold.
An appeals court
ruling on the legal challenge concluded in part that arguments, “that the
proposed state amendment expressly condemns [the plaintiff’s] religion and
exposes him and other Muslims in Oklahoma to disfavored treatment -- suffices
to establish the kind of direct injury-in-fact necessary to create
Establishment Clause standing.” The ruling also notes, "Appellants [those
representing the state of Oklahoma] do not identify any actual problem the
challenged amendment seeks to solve. Indeed, they admitted at the preliminary
injunction hearing that they did not know of even a single instance where an
Oklahoma court had applied Sharia law or used the legal precepts of other
nations or cultures..."
In Minnesota, the
legislator who was going to introduce an anti-Islam bill pulled the idea within
hours of a CAIR-led press conference.
Similarly, in New
Jersey a law maker withdrew an anti-Islam bill and met with Muslim community
leaders following CAIR’s intervention. In other states including Pennsylvania,
Florida, and Michigan, CAIR played a crucial role in efforts that succeeded in
ending proposed limits on American religious freedom.
Recently, a
hearing on an anti-Islam bill in Pennsylvania was cancelled after CAIR, along
with Christian and Jewish partner groups, began to raise concerns about it.
Mainstream
Candidates Willing to Subject Muslims to Unequal Treatment
As a second
example that Muslims need to defend our faith in order to uphold the
Constitution let’s look at the recent presidential election.
Herman Cain was for a while the frontrunner for the GOP’s presidential nomination.
Speaking to Christianity
Today on March 11, 2011, Cain said that followers of the “Muslim religion” have
“an objective to convert all infidels or kill them.”
Cain also said that Muslims who wanted to serve in his administration would have to take loyalty oaths. He explained to Fox News host Glenn Beck that he would not require similar oaths from Mormons or Catholics, “Because there is a greater dangerous part of the Muslim faith than there is in these other religions.”
Article VI of the
U.S. Constitution says there is no “religious test” for public office.
So, here we have
a man, a frontrunner, committing to undermining the Constitution. Did he get
tossed from the stage?
No.
He got
applause.
Rick Santorum,
also a frontrunner for a time, endorsed religious profiling during one of the
GOP presidential debates, saying, "Obviously, Muslims would be someone
you'd look at." In January, 2012 journalists brought attention to a
lengthy Islamophobic rant Santorum gave in 2007 at David Horowitz’s “Second Annual
Academic Freedom Conference.” Santorum asserted that in order to “win” against
a vaguely-defined Muslim enemy Americans must “…educate, engage, evangelize and
eradicate."
A former Speaker of the U.S. House, Newt Gingrich, yet another onetime frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, told an audience that he feared that by the time his grandchildren reach his 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.”According to Gingrich sharia is a "mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States."
The good news here? Even the Republican-party nominating process, which as we have heard in the news lately, pushes candidates too far right to win a mainstream presidential election ultimately rejected this kind of extremism. That’s good, but each man was in turn the frontrunner.
Other Attempts to
Strip Muslims of Equal Treatment Under the Law
Public groups
also seek to strip Muslims of equal protection under the Constitution.
According to
Brian Fischer of the Islamophobic American Family Association the First
Amendment does not apply to Muslims. “Islam has no fundamental First Amendment
claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion
of Islam,” Fisher wrote in a blog post.
Similar to
Fischer, a lawyer opposing a mosque expansion in Murfreesboro, Tenn. argued in
court that Islam is not a religion and is therefore not protected by the First
Amendment. Lawyers representing the Federal government submitted a brief to the
judge in that case arguing that yes, Islam actually is a religion. We
appreciated that, but reasonable people find that it was even needed to be
somewhat surreal.
The Oak
Initiative, a group whose name pops up more than once in association with
anti-Islam legislation, says through its mouthpiece retired Lieutenant General
William G. "Jerry" Boykin, that "[Islam] should not be protected
under the First Amendment" and that there should be "no mosques in
America."
The Family
Leader, an Iowa-based Christian conservative group, asked GOP presidential
candidates to sign a “marriage vow” pledge that proclaimed their opposition to
“Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human-rights forms of totalitarian
control.”
In its original
form, the pledge also contained troubling language regarding Africa-Americans:
‘Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a
child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and
father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after
the election of the USA's first African-American President.”
Michelle Bachman,
Rick Santorum and Rick Perry signed the pledge.
Rep. Peter King’s
Anti-Muslim Hearings
As a final
example, I will point to a use of one of our nation’s highest public
forums--the halls of the U.S. Congress--as a place to justify different
treatment of Muslims.
Rep. Peter King
(R-NY) held a series of five anti-Muslim hearings in Congress in 2011 and 2012.
For seven years prior to the first hearing, King had maintained that “80%, 85% of the mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists" and that average Muslims "are loyal," but "don't come forward, they don't tell the police what they know. They won't turn in their own.”
Throughout the hearings, CAIR was among those in the forefront of exposing King’s record of anti-Muslim statements and false allegations against our community.
King spent a lot of the first hearing attacking CAIR, which tells me we were doing a good job. They do not attack you when you are not relevant.
Afterward, CAIR produced the only comprehensive study of the first four hearings and exposed the truth: after eight years, four hearings and 18 witnesses, King failed to produce the promised evidence to support his stigmatization of America’s Muslims.
Not a single witness attempted to factually validate the allegation of a Muslim community run by extremists. Five of the six law enforcement representatives who testified did not support King’s assertion that Muslims do not cooperate with law enforcement. Instead, these witnesses described “strong relationships” with Somali Muslims, “strong bonds” with the American Muslim community and “outreach and engagement with Muslim communities.”
The Targeting of
Islamic Places of Worship
Sadly, in a move
that mirrors past efforts targeting African-American churches with acts of
intimidation, our places of worship have become targets of hate.
Ramadan
2012—which started on Friday, July 20 and ended at sun down on Saturday, August
18—saw one of the worst spikes of anti-Muslim incidents in over a decade.
In the first
seven months of 2012, there were 10 incidents in which Muslim places of worship
were targeted. In thirteen days in August, the days immediately after theshocking murders of Sikh worshippers in Wisconsin, there were 8 incidents inwhich Muslim places of worship were targeted.
Incidents in
Illinois included shots fired at a mosque in Morton Grove and an acid bomb
thrown at an Islamic school in Lombard. In other states, a mosque was burned to
the ground in Joplin, Mo., vandals sprayed an Oklahoma mosque with paintballs,
pigs legs were thrown at a mosque-site in California, and a firebomb was thrown
at a Muslim family's home in Panama City, Fla.
Optimism Can
Reign Supreme
Threats to equal
treatment are not new to America.
In fact, the
Constitution as originally enacted treated black people as three-fifths of a
human being and left them as property. Women were denied the seemingly basic
equal treatment of getting to cast a vote in a presidential election until
1920. Those insults to humanitarian principle were rectified.
Even after
slavery was ended, African-Americans were subjected to horrible treatment and
discriminatory laws.
They did not
hide.
Rev. Martin
Luther King was wire-tapped by federal authorities. In an FBI memo, he was
called the “most dangerous and effective negro leader in America.” J. Edgar
Hoover called him a “degenerate.”
Today, they get
King’s birthday off as a Federal Holiday.
I look to Japanese
Americans as a prime inspiration and source of hope. Like Muslims, as a group
they were blamed for an attack on this country. They were placed in internment
camps. We likely have them to thank as the reason we were not similarly
treated. They were vocal. They organized and after forty years of their hard
work, the government acknowledged that what was done to them was wrong.
In fact, we
inherit a rich tradition of standing up for an America that is based on a level
playing field. Catholics were discriminated against. Jews were discriminated
against. Mormons have been discriminated against. Each in turn has pushed back.
Today, it is our
turn to push back.
I guarantee you
that bias and efforts to treat someone as an enemy other will shift. We must push
back to honor those before us and to ensure that the next targeted group does
not say, “The Muslims failed us.”
The Trustworthy
A final thought.
Before he became a prophet, Muhammad (peace be upon him) was known as Al-Ameen,
the Trustworthy. He did not lie. He kept his word.
We as Muslims
must consider this. Most Americans were introduced to our faith on 9/11
watching an airplanes slam into buildings. That was followed by repeated media
images of crazy men in caves threatening Americans with a violent, brutal
death.
We in this room
know that such monstrosities are heretical. They are incompatible with any
understanding of Islam. We know Islam compels us to be trustworthy.
But I wonder how
many of our neighbors retain that image of planes and crazy in their deeper
emotional places and are unsure if we are trustworthy. They may harbor, even
unwanted, a concern that maybe the bigots who claim Muslims are an existential
threat to America are right.
We must, each as
an individual and in partnership with institutions like CAIR, strive to become
known in America as the Trustworthy. We do that by upholding the Constitution
for everyone. We do that by being a benefit to them and preventing harm from
coming to them.
I know you are
committed to this idea. I pray you will join us putting faith into action.
Thank you.
