Islamophobia 2013: Lawmaking that makes me mourn for our democracy

Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City) is a former teacher and the daughter of a Baptist pastor. Governor Mary Fallin signed Kern's anti-Islam bill into law in  April 2013.

Wishful thinking, I know, but one would hope a history of personal prejudice might disuade other lawmakers from endorsing her bill, but apparently not.

In 2011, Kern was reprimanded by the Oklahoma House for disparaging women and ethnic minorities. As reported by The Oklahoman, "During a debate Wednesday night on the House of Representatives floor, Kern said minorities earn less than white people and women
earn less than men because they don't work as hard and have less initiative."

In 2008, Kern expressed her view that, "Gays are an even bigger threat than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat."

Her bill's easily identifiable genesis in a hate movement also had no impact on the legislative process.

In 2010, Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved the “Save Our State Amendment,” a state constitutional amendment that specifically banned judges from considering Islamic religious principles.

In 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld a lower court's decision to block amendment's implementation. The lower court had agreed with arguments that the amendment would unconstitutionally disfavor an entire faith and deny Oklahoma's Muslims access to the judicial system on the same terms as every other citizen.

While the legal issues were being settled, legislators went back to the drawing board to find a way to achieve the goal of vilifying Islam without breaking the law.

The resulting bill was Kern's HB 1060. 

It’s wording is clearly lifted from American Laws for American Courts (ALAC). Kern acknowledged that her 2011 bill was copied almost word-for-word from the ALAC template, which was authored by a man known for writing “most of the fundamental differences between the races are genetic."

Further, reporting revealed that she consulted with the Center for Security Policy (CSP) on her 2011 bill and “some of the momentum for her bill comes from the work of Brigitte Gabriel.” I have documented the Islamophobic nature of both CSP and Brigitte Gabriel.

Like many legislators using ALAC, Kern has argued that her bill does not single out Muslims or Islam. However, as Kern herself pointed out, “Because of the careful planning and thought behind ALAC's wording, from a practical standpoint, it is effective in preventing the enforcement of any foreign law—including Shariah law—that would violate U.S. and state constitutional liberties or state public policy.”

I am all for protecting constitutional liberties, maybe Oklahoma could pass something to protect its citizens from the NSA. Instead, elected officials there choose to pursue a fantastical hobgoblin and reward a prejudiced lawmaker and her prejudiced bill with a seal of approval.   

Islamophobia 2013: "It is, in laymans terms," not the Islamic apocalypse

In March, Tennessee state legislators Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro) and Rep. Judd Matheny (R-Tullahoma) discovered that a Muslim footbath had apparently been stealthily installed during renovations to Tennessee’s state Capitol building.

A concerned Ketron went and spoke to the Senate clerk about it.

 

Legislative administration director Connie Ridley explained away the possible apocalypse of Islamic pre-prayer hygiene rituals by clarifying the purpose of the suspected foot cleansing device: “It is, in layman's terms, a mop sink."

 

Ketron and Matheny have a history of puzzling efforts to protect America. Not allowing the Constitution to get in the way of what struck them as a good idea, the two men had previously introduced legislation that would have effectively banned being a Muslim in Tennessee.

 

(Saylor note: This is the first in a brief series of posts running from now until the end of the year examining some of the incidents, and issues that came up regarding Islamophobia in America in 2013.)

 

 

Dawud Walid: Attack against pilgrims calls for renewed intrafaith cooperation

Attack against pilgrims calls for renewed intrafaith cooperation

By Dawud Walid 

(As published in Arab American News)

Thursday, 10.24.2013, 09:12pm

News that Michigan Muslims were attacked at Hajj recently, due to sectarianism, increases the need for American Muslim leaders and activists to cultivate a spirit of constructive engagement among the followers of Islam, especially in America.

I personally know some of the Shia Muslims who were reportedly beaten, choked, threatened with rape, and called “kafirs” (disbelievers) in Mina.  I have no reason to doubt that this incident happened, as I have witnessed sectarian harassment up close, while visiting Saudi Arabia and other places.  Moreover, in the past decade, we have seen certain regions ravaged by sectarian violence, including numerous bombings at houses of worship during Friday prayer sermons

It is a mistake to act as if sectarianism does not exist among Muslims; as if ignoring the problem will make it go away.  Moreover, it is irresponsible to say that the mere mention of it is somehow promoting it.  It must be approached, head on, with spirituality as the guide, as well as wisdom. In February 2006, after the bombing of Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) saw an opportunity to bring the Metro Detroit Muslim community together by, not only asking its religious leaders to denounce sectarianism, but by also creating a platform that could bring them together.  This area of cooperation was needed, in order to robustly challenge Islamophobia, which is a common enemy to all Muslims and to the integrity of America as a whole.  I was part of the effort, which organized imams for bi-weekly meetings over a span of months and produced scholastically correct replies to common attacks used by anti-Muslim bigots against the Qur’an, Prophet Muhammad (prayers and peace be upon him and his family) and the Prophet’s wives.  These answers can be found online, under “Imams Defend Prophet (S).”

These meetings birthed the practice of Detroit area imams attending and speaking at events, hosted at Islamic centers of different schools of thought, as well as the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan Imams Committee monthly meetings, which are now under the banner of the Michigan Muslim Community Council (MMCC).

In 2007, Michigan imams showed leadership, by signing the Muslim Code of Honor, which affirms that Muslims should respect differences of opinion within Islamic theology and jurisprudence and not to pronounce “takfir” over other Muslims, calling them nonbelievers.  In September of this year, a number of national Islamic organizations, including the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and CAIR, signed onto a similar code that rejects sectarianism among Muslims.

We ought to demand that Islamic scholars overseas and governments abroad vigorously denounce violent sectarianism and grant all people of faith equal protection under the law.

However, our primary concern should be on working towards better cooperation among Muslims of all schools of thought in America.  We face challenges that range from Islamophobia to the crisis of drug and alcohol use among our youth, which Muslims have a vested interest in addressing with our intellectual and financial resources.  We simply cannot allow voices of intolerance to concretize the community discourse to the point that we divide ourselves to the detriment of our collective interests in America.

As pilgrims return home, it is my hope that our community renews its commitment to a key principle of Hajj, which is the unity of the collective interests and welfare of all people under their Creator.  We will never eradicate sectarianism, but we can work, in our own way, to marginalize those who seek to promote intolerance and hatred and who falsely fly the banner of Islam.

UPI Ouside View Column "CAIR: Column promotes crass stereotypes of Muslims"

(Piece I wrote published recently by UPI)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- American ideals embrace the notion of freedom of religion. Our realities can be somewhat different. A recent article distributed by UPI ("Mosques -- Smiling dens of iniquity?" by James Zumwalt) shows that the willingness to promote crass religious stereotypes remains a serious issue.

Anti-Semitism has long been a stain on our national dignity. A U.S. Army manual written for World War I recruits alleged that Jews were more likely to "malinger" than others. Signs could be found around the nation proudly announcing "No dogs. No Jews." Henry Ford, of automotive fame, authored "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem."

Anti-Catholic sentiment also has a lengthy history. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era", James McPherson reports on suspicion of Catholic immigrants in the 1800s saying: "Most of these new Americans worshipped in Roman Catholic churches. Their growing presence filled some Protestant Americans with alarm. Numerous nativist organizations sprang up as the first line of resistance in what became a long and painful retreat toward acceptance of cultural pluralism."

Thus it comes as no surprise that 37 groups dedicated to spreading anti-Islam prejudice in the United States enjoyed access to at least $119,662,719 in total revenue between 2008 and 2011, according to "Legislating Fear," a new report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR's report says that Islamophobia in the United States has resulted in a certain willingness to undermine the U.S. Constitution.

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution prohibits any "religious test" for public office. However, in 2010 Time reported that "twenty-eight percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court" and that "nearly one-third of the country thinks adherents of Islam should be barred from running for president."

Herman Cain, at one point the front-runner for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, manifested a version of this sentiment when he said that to serve in his administration he would require loyalty oaths from Muslims.

In 2010 Oklahoma voters approved SQ 755, a state constitutional amendment banning judges in that state from considering Islamic religious principles in their rulings. In practice this would have prohibited a judge from probating an Islamic will. In the voting booth, Oklahomans were told that Islamic religious principles are "based on two principal sources, the Koran and the teaching of Mohammed."

The First Amendment clearly prohibits any such government interference in the free exercise of a religion. For this reason a CAIR staff person in Oklahoma challenged the law in court. In 2013 a federal judge struck the amendment down as unconstitutional.

Oklahoma's bill wasn't unique. In 2011 and 2012, 78 bills or amendments designed to vilify Islamic religious practices were introduced in the legislatures of 29 states and the U.S. Congress. Seventy-three of the bills were introduced solely by Republicans.

Anti-Islam bills are now law in seven states.

There are other indicators that Islamophobia is a societal issue in America.

In September 2011, the Public Religion Research Institute noted, "Forty-seven percent of Americans agree that Islam is at odds with American values, and 48 percent disagree." PRRI later reported that the number of Americans who say Muslims are working to subvert the Constitution rose from 23 percent in February 2012 to 30 percent in September 2012.

While these facts are disconcerting, they are nothing new. Just a Jews, Catholics and others stood up to prejudice, so, too, are Muslims. In fact, Muslims benefit from the lessons these other faith traditions learned in their struggles against prejudice.

America's Muslims also recognize that while the lens of prejudice may be on us today, it will eventually turn elsewhere. We want to make sure our struggle is a benefit to this next group and our nation as a whole.

Our nation has historically evolved for the better. The shame of the three-fifths compromise, by which southern and northern states agreed to count slaves as partial human beings for the purposes of the distribution of taxes and representation in Congress, was removed from the Constitution. Equally, the 15th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are inspiring reminders that our nation evolves. It took until 1920, 144 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, to pass a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote, but we got there.

For this reason people of conscience must continually remind themselves that the specters of bigotry, discrimination and second-class citizenship are omnipresent.

CAIR on Malala Yousafzai

The People and Groups Behind Anti-Islam Legislation

David Yerushalmi, is an attorney with U.S. Islamophobia network inner core groups the Center for Security Policy and the American Freedom Law Center. He is confident in his hatred of Islam. Writing in the American Spectator in 2006 Yerushaml asserted, “Our greatest enemy today is Islam. The only Islam appearing in any formal way around the world is one that seeks a world Caliphate through murder, terror and fear.” Yerushalmi is also a founder of the Society of Americans for National Existence, a group that once advanced a policy advocated incarceration for “adherence to Islam.”

 

Outside of his anti-Islam activism Yerushalmi is notable for writing, "There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote." According to an article in New York Jewish Week in 2007, Yerushalmi also says he finds truth in the view that Jews destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite.

 

He is also the author of American Laws for American Courts (ALAC), the template for many anti-Islam bills introduced across the nation.

 

He wrote the bill for the American Public Policy Alliance (APPA). While the organization has a professional-looking website, its Washington, D.C. address is a UPS Store. APPA has a minor Facebook presence, with less than 100 friends as of early 2013.

 

Yerushalmi’s bill is then pushed at the state-level by groups like ACT! for America, the Eagle Forum and to a lesser extent Pamela Geller’s Stop the Islamization of America.

 

In its 2011 IRS filings, ACT! for America includes among the organization’s accomplishments a total membership of 175,000 people, 635 chapters, and 40,000 Facebook fans. The group also celebrates its role in the passage of anti-Islam bills in Arizona and Tennessee. Also among its accomplishments ACT! lists the distribution of thousands of “Sharia Law for Non-Muslim” [sic] pamphlets and the hosting of multiple events at which participants were inaccurately taught “how the Islamic doctrine of abrogation, which is the annulling of contradictory passages in the Koran, has annulled up to 124 peaceful and superseded them with violent and jihadist verses aimed at non-Muslims.”

 

In 2008, ACT! for America founder Brigitte Gabriel told the Australian Jewish News: "Every practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim." Speaking at the Intelligence Summit in Washington, D.C. on February 19, 2006, Gabriel told the audience, “America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy. Islam.”

 

In a newsletter the Eagle Forum told its supporters, “Sharia law is becoming part of the American landscape as Christianity is being systematically removed. Christian students are being told they cannot pray at school activities or even pray in front of American institutions, while public school students adopt Muslim names, pray on prayer rugs and celebrate Ramadan under a state-mandated curriculum," according to the Houston Chronicle. Tennessee’s anti-Islam bill was given to legislators by Tennessee Eagle Forum President Bobbie Patray. Texas Eagle Forum president Pat Carlson testified in favor of that state’s anti-Islam bill.

 

In December 2012, an Alaska ethics panel recommended that Karen Sawyer, former chief of staff to state Rep. Carl Gatto, be fired after it found “she used state resources to help an anti-Islamic group.” The panel also recommended that Sawyer never be allowed to work for the legislature again. Sawyer resigned before she could be fired. According to the panel’s findings, Sawyer allowed David Heckert of Stop Islamization of America to “use the Wasilla legislative information office and equipment for work related to his organization.” It also found that Sawyer used state equipment to help plan activities related to a 2011 group conference, and that she failed to file a timely disclosure showing she was a member of the group's board in 2011 and 2012.” The Associated Press also noted that the panel found that SIOA’s "main mission appeared to be promoting their organization and its mission with HB88 [Alaska’s anti-Islam bill] as a validation point."

 

Summed up, one man with a history of anti-Islam prejudice writes a bill for a group that appears to exist only on the internet which is then pushed by organizations committed to spreading fear and prejudice about Islam.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Islamophobia Network Outer Core Bradley Foundation

Islamic rights group's report rips Bradley Foundation funding

 
By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

A Milwaukee foundation that has donated more than $300 million to conservative causes over the last decade is accused of promoting Islamophobia in a report released this week by a the nation's largest Islamic civil rights group.

In "Legislating Fear: Islamophobia and its Impact in the United States," the New York-based* Council on American-Islamic Relations includes the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation among a list of donors that it says finance a vast network of individuals and organizations that spread prejudice against or hatred of Muslims.

"There's no doubt that there is a small minority (of Muslims) that are twisting my faith and using it to justify violence. But the Islamophobic network says, no, that's all Muslims," said council spokesman Corey Saylor. "They think Muslims are here to dominate, to subvert the constitution, and that's what they're going around the country teaching people."

Bradley Foundation President Michael Grebe acknowledged that it funds some organizations that are critical of radical Islam.

[Saylor note: According to the Foundation’s 2012 Annual Report, it gave $60,000 to the Center for Security Policy $25,000 to Middle East Forum, and $225,000 to David Horowitz Freedom Center that year. Center for Security Policy counsel David Yerushalmi has said, “Muslim civilization is at war with Judeo-Christian civilization.” Middle East Forum head Daniel Pipes. In 1990 Middle East Forum head Daniel Pipes asserted: "Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene...All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most." In Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the Radical Left, Freedom Center founder David Horowitz said that both Muslims and progressives abhor America and American values.” Given that these are sweeping indictments of the entire Islamic faith, it is troubling that the Bradley Foundation finds such organizations simply “critical."]

"But we don't promote...Islamophobia, and indeed we provide grants to a number of groups that would be described as moderate Muslims," he said.

[Saylor note: In my mind even if they funded CAIR that would not let them off the hook. For example, if a group funds white supremacists they cannot wave off criticism because they fund the NAACP as well. In my book, donating to inner core groups should be as socially acceptable as funding white supremacists or anti-Semites.]

The Council's report lists an "inner core" of 37 organizations and individuals whose primary purpose it says is to foment hate toward Muslims. The Bradley Foundation appears in the "outer core," a list of 32 groups that do not share that primary focus, but whose work "regularly demonstrates or supports Islamophobic themes."

Among the report's findings:

* Nearly $120 million flowed to anti-Muslim groups, including three funded by the Bradley Foundation, between 2008 and 2011.

* Anti-Muslim rhetoric and stereotypes pervade every aspect of society, from government and law enforcement organizations to religious communities.

* There were 51 recorded anti-mosque acts in 2011 and 2012, including two spikes — one after the killing of Osama Bin Laden and another after the massacre at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek.

The study provides little detail about the outer core organizations, and the Council said that would come in a subsequent report. But Saylor pointed to a 2011 report bythe Center for American Progress, which called the Bradley Foundation one of the top seven organizations financing Islamophobia.

According to that report, the Bradley Foundation awarded $4.2 million to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, $815,000 to Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy and $305,000 to Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum over the years.

Islamic Society of Milwaukee President Ahmed Quereshi, who said he was surprised by the Bradley connection, called the trio some of the most notorious Islamophobes. Wisconsin members of two groups mentioned in the report — ACT! for America and the Eagle Forum — voiced opposition to a Brookfield mosque that is now under construction. Quereshi said he would be speaking with others in the Muslim community about reaching out to the foundation.

Grebe provided a list of organizations the Bradley Foundation has funded that he said promote pluralism and moderate Islam. Among them: American Islamic Congress' Project Nur, which it says promotes civic leadership among Muslim-American students; and the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies. None of the other organizations appears in the Council's report.

*CAIR’s headquarters in in Washington, D.C., but we have a great chapter in New York.

 

The Reality of Islamophobia in America

By Corey Saylor

Thirty-seven groups dedicated to spreading anti-Islam prejudice in America enjoyed access to at least $119,662,719 in total revenue between 2008 and 2011, according to a new report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

These groups often deny that Islamophobia exists in our nation. CAIR’s research finds a darker reality.

Islamophobia in America has resulted in a certain willingness to undermine the Constitution.

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution prohibits any “religious test” for public office. However, in 2010 Time reported that “twenty-eight percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court” and that “nearly one-third of the country thinks adherents of Islam should be barred from running for President.” Herman Cain, at one point the frontrunner for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, manifested a version of this sentiment when he said that to serve in his administration he would require loyalty oaths from Muslims. Cain said 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.”

In 2010 Oklahoma voters approved SQ 755, a state constitutional amendment banning judges in that state from considering Islamic religious principles in their rulings. In practice this would have prohibited a judge from probating an Islamic will. In the voting booth, Oklahomans were told that Islamic religious principles are “based on two principal sources, the Koran and the teaching of Mohammed.” The First Amendment clearly prohibits any such government interference in the free exercise of a religion. For this reason a CAIR staff person in Oklahoma challenged the law in court. In 2013 a Federal judge struck the amendment down as un-Constitutional.

Oklahoma’s bill was not unique. In 2011 and 2012, 78 bills or amendments designed to vilify Islamic religious practices were introduced in the legislatures of 29 states and the U.S. Congress. Seventy-three of the bills were introduced solely by Republicans. In at least 11 states, mainstream Republican leaders introduced or supported anti-Muslim legislation. While the bias behind the bills is clear, the presence of an actual problem that needed solved was not, even to the legislators introducing the measures. As CAIR’s report shows, time and again when asked to provide examples of Islamic religious principles trumping U.S. law legislators failed to do so.

Sixty-two of these bills contained language that was extracted from David Yerushalmi’s American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) model legislation. Yeushalmi believes “Our greatest enemy today is Islam.” He has also asserted, "There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote” and says he finds truth in the view that Jews destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite. Yerushalmi is an odd voice to be granted legitimacy in so many legislatures.

Anti-Islam bills are now law in seven states.

There are other indicators that Islamophobia is a societal issue in America.

A survey released by Gallup in August 2011 found that “at 48%, Muslim Americans are by far the most likely of major faith groups surveyed to say they have personally experienced racial or religious discrimination in the past year.” In September 2011, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) noted, “Forty seven percent of Americans agree that Islam is at odds with American values, and 48 percent disagree.” PRRI later reported that the number of Americans who feel Muslims are working to subvert the Constitution rose from 23 percent in February 2012 to 30 percent in September 2012. 

According to a study released by Ohio State University in July 2011, in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden researchers found that Americans, particularly “political liberals and moderates” found Muslims more threatening and positive perceptions of Muslims significantly declined.

According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), in 2011 cases filed on the basis of “Religion-Muslim” accounted for 21 percent of the total religion charges. In 2011, the most recent year for which the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has released statistics, there were 157 anti-Muslim hate crimes. The agency reported 107 anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2009 and 160 in 2010.

According to CAIR, there were 51 recorded anti-mosque acts in 2011 and 2012. These included facilities in Joplin, Mo. and Toledo, Ohio sustaining catastrophic damage as a result of arson. David Conrad fired an air rifle, nearly hitting one worshipper, at a mosque in Morton Grove, Ill. A bottle filled with acid was thrown at a mosque in Lombard, Ill. A man living next to a mosque in Amherst, N.Y. posted a sign on his property reading, “Bomb Making Next Driveway.” During a hearing for a proposed mosque in Plymouth, Minn. individuals opposed to the project asserted, "aiding the enemy is treason," and "this is an ideology that wants to destroy."

Two notable spikes in anti-mosque acts occurred in 2011-2012: May 2011 (7 acts), likely related to the killing of Osama bin Laden and August 2012 (10 acts), probably all in reaction to the massacre of six Sikh worshippers by a white supremacist in Oak Creek, Wis.

Islamophobic rhetoric remains socially acceptable. Research released in 2011 found, “citizens are quite comfortable not only opposing [extending citizenship to legal Muslim immigrants], but also being public about that fact.” A number of mainstream candidates for the Republican presidential nomination used Islamophobic rhetoric, as represented by the Herman Cain quote offered earlier. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) held a series of five anti-Muslim congressional hearings, which were subjected to broad spectrum push back but also enjoyed significant support. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) partnered with key U.S. Islamophobia network leader Frank Gaffney to launch a campaign accusing Muslims in public service of infiltrating the government on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood. In reaction to this last episode many public officials spoke out in a bipartisan show of support for Americans of the Islamic faith.

All of this presents a sober picture, but one that is more realistic than simplistic talking points designed to deny Islamophobia exists in America.

All, however, is not bleak. Subject matter experts surveyed by CAIR perceive a small, but highly welcome, decline in Islamophobia in America during 2011 and 2012. This makes sense given that the last time CAIR conducted this survey was during the 2010 national controversy over Park 51, a proposed Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan that was misleadingly dubbed the “ground zero mosque.” That controversy’s proximity to the mid-term election and international news surrounding a Florida pastor’s planning 9/11 “International Burn a Koran Day” resulted in what is likely the U.S. Islamophobia network’s biggest moment in the spotlight.

All this points to an interesting moment for Islam in America. The faith is certainly subject to much suspicion. This suspicion is often latent, but certain incidents can bring it to the forefront. On the other hand, nothing leads me to believe this opinion has solidified.

After the tragic bombings in Boston, Pew found that while Americans perceive Muslims as more discriminated against than other groups—gays, Hispanics and African Americans—young people do not believe Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence.

Denial of a problem is not a solution. A sober assessment is a good beginning. Like racism, anti-Semitism, sexism and other issues, Islamophobia exists. Based on the positive news above it need not be seen as a malignant issue, but rather one that can be resolved.

Ray Kelly not a good choice for DHS

Muslims Oppose Raymond Kelly Bid For Homeland Security Secretary

By Omar Sacirbey

Religion News Service

(RNS) Muslim-American groups are mounting a growing campaign to quash the potential nomination of New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly as the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Muslims say that as head of the nation’s biggest police force, the commissioner oversaw a spying program that targeted Muslims based solely on their religion, showed poor judgment by participating in a virulently anti-Islamic film, and approved a report on terrorism that equated innocuous behavior such as quitting smoking with signs of radicalization.

Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano announced she is resigning in September to become president of the University of California system.

“Mr. Kelly might be very happy where he is, but if he’s not, I’d want to know about it, because obviously he’d be very well qualified for the job,” President Obama said in a July 16 interview with Univision.

Muslims are particularly indignant because Obama said on numerous occasions that he would work to end profiling.

“Ray Kelly has a proven record of violating Americans’ basic civil rights,” said Glenn Katon, legal director of Muslim Advocates, a civil rights group based in San Francisco. “His willingness to use discriminatory policing methods against innocent citizens should concern Americans of every faith, ethnic and racial background.”

The very mention of Kelly’s name as possible head of the DHS has sparked concern among many Muslim groups, who in a sign of their growing organizational maturity have swiftly marshaled their energies to oppose Kelly before he is even nominated.

The Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition sent a four-page letter to Obama on July 18 detailing why they would oppose a potential Kelly nomination.

“Commissioner Kelly’s legacy in New York is synonymous with divisive, harmful, and ineffective policing that promotes stereotypes and profiling,” the letter said. The coalition includes the Association of Muslim American Lawyers, the Muslim Bar Association of New York and the Muslim Consultative Network.

In addition, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington sent out an “action alert” to members urging them to email a form letter telling Obama to not nominate Kelly.

Perhaps of greatest concern to Muslims is a NYPD surveillance program, uncovered in 2011, in which police officers and paid informants watched and collected evidence on at least 250 mosques, 12 Islamic schools, 31 Muslim student and 256 “ethnic hotspots” such as cafes. The commanding officer of the NYPD’s Intelligence Division said in a 2012 report that the program did not yield any leads.

Muslims are also upset Kelly agreed to be interviewed for “The Third Jihad,” a 2009 film that casts all Muslims as potential terrorists. “The Third Jihad” was shown to some 1,500 officers as a “training film.” Kelly and one of his deputies denied knowledge of the interview, but later confessed.

Muslims were also troubled by a 2007 NYPD report, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” which critics said equated praying, fasting, growing a beard, and quitting smoking with radicalization.

“He has based his policing methods with ethnic communities, especially the American Muslim community, on faulty and bad reports,” said Hoda Elshishtawy of the Washington-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. “These programs and reports actually make citizens less safe because they are not based on fact.”

Kelly did not respond to a request for comment. He defended his record in a recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal. He dismissed the allegation that the NYPD spied on Muslim New Yorkers, calling it a “sensational charge belied by the facts.”

“Anyone who implies that it is unlawful for the police department to search online, visit public places or map neighborhoods has either not read, misunderstood or intentionally obfuscated the meaning of the (police guidelines),” Kelly wrote.

The commissioner has also come under fire for a controversial “stop-and-frisk program” that allows police officers to stop, question and frisk a person who appears suspicious. Critics say most people stopped have been African-American or Hispanic.

Other groups that have been critical of Kelly’s record include the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Latino Officers Association, and 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement.

During his 2008 campaign, Obama said he would ban profiling, while in 2011, the White House released a local communities plan that recommended building trust between law enforcement and communities.

“A Kelly appointment to any position in the administration would demonstrate President Obama’s tacit endorsement of Kelly’s embrace of racial and religious profiling and indicate a severe reversal of the administration’s earlier positions,” said Corey Saylor, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Video: CAIR Rep Tells BBC That Extremism Has No Place in Muslim Community

Is Struggling for Civil Rights the Pursuit of Happiness?

Is Struggling for Civil Rights the Pursuit of Happiness? 
38th Annual ICNA-MAS Convention, May 26, 2013
(Speech as written.)

Salaam alaykum. Peace be unto you. Good afternoon.

My mother was born and raised in Scotland. She met and married my father, a U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant, in England. She came to the United States in the late 1960’s.

As she tells it, her first major impression of America was looking out of an airpalne’s window and seeing fires burning along the Detroit skyline.

That was a time of great unhappiness in our nation. The 1967 riot in Detroit resulted in 43 dead and 467 injured people. Damage estimates at the time ranged from 40-60 million dollars.

The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders’ 1968 report, the result of an investigation of civil unrest such as the Detroit riot, has a very famous passage:

"Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal."

So our question today, “Is Struggling for Civil Rights the Pursuit of Happiness?” becomes easy to answer.

Happiness is difficult in an unjust, unequal society.

Happiness, Rights and the Revolution
Our nation’s founder’s embodied this reality.

Everyone knows the famous lines from the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But I want you to hear what comes after that:

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

So, in laying out their justification for breaking from the British Empire, the Founder’s argue that government needs to be organized in a fashion most likely to allow those living under it the most safety and happiness.

If you read further, you will find a list of issues that the Founder’s had with King George’s rule, among those is this:

“He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.”

So the Founder’s took the incredible step of breaking with King George’s government in part due to his “invasions on the rights of the people” and sought a new form of government more likely to “effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Happiness is difficult in an unjust society.

Struggling for civil rights might not always be the pursuit of our own individual happiness, but it is definitely a larger pursuit of peace and therefore happiness for larger communities.

For individuals being able to live in peace and security is the foundation of happiness.

If we live in fear of having our basic rights violated at any time, and we are not secure in the knowledge that our children are safe as well from having their rights violated, then no amount of education, success and wealth can ever make up for the lack of basic rights or enable us to build happy and content lives.

Nothing that I have said so far is surprising, shocking or particularly a revelation.

Upholding the Constitution
But here is a key, and for this gathering, crucial reality, that may surprise you:

American Muslims are on the front lines of protecting the Constitution ideals of a just and equal society.

There are 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 other. People who seek two societies—separate and unequal.

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 29 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.”

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.”

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.”iv

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?”

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.

CAIR is in the forefront of efforts to reject legislating government-sanctioned discrimination against Muslims. 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 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..."

Mainstream Candidates Willing to Subject Muslims to Unequal Treatment 
As a second example that Muslims need to defend our faith in order to secure the Constitution’s ideals of securing each person’s equal right to liberty 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.”vii (I am not sure what that means either.) 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 in my opinion 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.

Optimism Can Reign Supreme 
Threats to each person’s equal right to liberty 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, those same federal authorities 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 Ultimate Rebuke 
So. Happiness is difficult in an unjust society. American Muslims are on the frontlines of helping ensure our nation does not take a wrong turn and become an unjust, unequal society.

There is one final benefit to consider.

In his counter terrorism speech on Thursday, President Obama said, “Indeed, the success of American Muslims, and our determination to guard against any encroachment on their civil liberties, is the ultimate rebuke to those who say we are at war with Islam.”

The way we, as Muslims, defend those liberties, for ourselves and everyone else is our ultimate rebuke to the Islamophobes.

Anti-Islam Legislation Updates

Sharia law ban heads to Senate

[Saylor note: From an article discussing a bill that is advancing in North Carolina.]

Corey Saylor with the Council on American-Islamic Relations called the proposal "anti-Islamic."

"Anyone who believes foreign law can replace the Constitution is misguided," he said. "The Supremacy Clause ensures that the Constitution will always remain our nation’s law. American Muslims like it that way, as it ensures every individual’s right to worship or not as they see fit."

"That is why CAIR’s lawsuit against an anti-Islam bill in Oklahoma argues First Amendment and Supremacy Clause issues," Saylor said in a statement. "Four federal judges have ruled in our favor so far, so we are confident we are upholding the Constitution.

"Frankly, supporters of anti-Islam legislation, such as HB 695, are undermining its protections," he added.

Anti-Shariah movement changes tactics and gains success

Omar Sacirbey | May 16, 2013

(RNS) When Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved a 2010 ballot measure that prohibits state courts from considering Islamic law, or Shariah, the Council of American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit within two days challenging the constitutionality of the measure, and won.

But when Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a similar measure, one that its sponsor said would forbid Shariah, on April 19 of this year, no legal challenges were mounted.

Why the change?

The biggest difference is that the older bill — and others like it — singled out Islam and Shariah, but also raised concerns that they could affect Catholic canon law or Jewish law. Many early anti-Shariah bills also made references to international or foreign law, which worried businesses that the new bills would undermine contracts and trade with foreign companies.

The new bills, however, are more vague and mention only foreign laws, with no references to Shariah or Islam. They also make specific exceptions for international trade. All of that makes them harder to challenge as a violation of religious freedom.

“These bills don’t have any real-world effect. Their only purpose is to allow people to vilify Islam,” said Corey Saylor, CAIR’s legislative affairs director, of the more recent bills.

The change in language seems to have helped such bills advance in several states. And while these bills no longer single out Shariah, it is often understood that Shariah is the target, which many legislators make no secret of.

The driving force behind these new versions of anti-Shariah laws is “anti-Muslim bigotry plain and simple,” said Daniel Mach of the American Civil Liberties Union, speaking on a panel in Washington Thursday (May 16). To those agitating for such measures, “Islam is the face of the enemy,” he said.

To date, Oklahoma is the sixth state — joining Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Tennessee — to adopt a law prohibiting courts from using foreign or international law, with some exceptions, in their decisions.

This year, at least 36 anti-foreign law bills have been proposed in 15 states, down from 51 bills in 23 states in 2011. While most of this year’s anti-foreign law bills have failed, several others, have advanced:

• A North Carolina legislative committee on Wednesday sent a bill to the House that would prohibit consideration of foreign laws in custody and other family law cases.
• On May 9, the Missouri legislature passed an anti-foreign law bill that goes next to Gov. Jay Nixon, who has until July 14 to decide whether he will sign or veto it. Nixon, a Democrat, has not indicated what he will do, and did not reply to a request for comment.
• In Alabama, Indiana and Texas, anti-foreign law bills have made it through the state senates, and are now either in house committees or awaiting full floor votes.
• An anti-foreign law bill in Florida that needed a two-thirds majority to pass fell one vote short, 25-14. Besides Florida, anti-foreign law bills have been introduced but were defeated, died, or are languishing in Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Despite the losses, David Yerushalmi, the Washington-based lawyer who drafted template legislation used for the anti-Shariah and anti-foreign law bills, said the anti-Shariah movement “is growing every day” and expects more states to adopt such bills in the future.


“People see the threat and also know that a bill that simply protects U.S. citizens and residents from constitutionally offensive foreign laws and judgments can only be a good thing,” Yerushalmi said.

But CAIR’s Saylor said that victory may prove elusive for the anti-Shariah forces. By stripping all references to Islamic law, the anti-Shariah movement has failed to restrict Muslim religious rights. “In terms of substance, it’s already been beaten,” he said.

Nevertheless, some observers worry that even these watered-down bills could still be interpreted in ways that impinge on Muslims’ religious freedom.

For example, according to the Gavel to Gavel website that covers state legislatures, many of the new anti-foreign law bills specify that the prohibition on courts using foreign laws applies only to certain case types, such as family law or domestic relations. Shariah, as well as Jewish law, is widely used in these types of cases.

“While the foreign law bans are certainly less of a frontal assault on religious freedom than the anti-Shariah bills, they continue to raise concerns about bias towards minority faiths,” said Faiza Patel, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

“The bans cast a cloud of uncertainty over a myriad of arrangements, including family and business-related matters, simply because they have foreign or religious origins.”

She added that some bans on foreign law seem to require judges to reject any foreign law or judgment that comes from a country that does not protect rights in the same way the United States does, even if the case being considered does not raise any rights concerns.

“This could deprive many Jewish and Muslim couples of a wide range of benefits — lower tax rates, immigration benefits for foreign partners and the ability to make life-and-death decisions on behalf of each other in medical emergencies,” Patel said.

Even CAIR won’t rule out the possibility of future legal challenges.

“If someone tries to use these laws to undermine a person’s religious rights, we’re keeping all of our legal options on the table,” Saylor said.