State leaders speak out about plans to expand the Islamic Academy of Alabama

[essentialsaltes]

Plans proposed by the K-12 school were denied by a Hoover zoning commission.

In a statement, the Academy said objections to their plan were “…unrelated to zoning criteria and instead reflected harmful stereotypes and conspiracy theories about Muslims and Islamic institutions.”

[Article provides ample evidence of the harmful stereotypes and conspiracy theories]

“We really just don’t have a place for such here,” said Rep. Butler. “Where you’re screaming ‘kill the infidel, death to America.’ That’s just not welcome here. There are plenty of Muslim countries that would welcome that.”

“What they’re doing is going against our Constitution,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) in an interview with Breanna Morella on Infowars, speaking out against the Academy. “I mean, you can’t preach hate, you can’t preach death. ‘Kill all infidels. Kill all Christians.’ You can’t do that.”

 

[durangodawood]

We have an actual US Senator interviewing on Infowars???

No wonder this country is in such a muddle. People with real power having no sense of whats real. I guess thats what we get when enough of the voters are similarly afflicted.

(Im "holding space" for the possibility this didnt even happen. Its almost too absurd.)

 

[essentialsaltes]

We have an actual US Senator interviewing on Infowars???

Well, the highest degree he's earned is Coach. We can't expect much.

 

[durangodawood]

Well, the highest degree he's earned is Coach. We can't expect much.

Hey he has a BS in physical education. I looked it up. Tho this is America where coach > teacher.

Plus you dont need a degree to have your head screwed on properly.

 

[iluvatar5150]

"Why does everybody keep calling us bigots?"

 

[Maria Billingsley]

“I mean, you can’t preach hate, you can’t preach death.

Just a reminder.....Who really preaches hate and death?
Let us reason please!

Quote fron Donakd Trump:
"They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country. I'll be honest with you... We're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren't people that work. These aren't people that say, let's go. Come on, let's make this place great."

Quote from Donald Trump
"I don't know if you call them people. In some cases, they're not people, in my opinion.They're not people, these are animals."

 

[FAITH-IN-HIM]

Many of us contribute, either directly or indirectly, to supporting Christian missionary work around the world, including in countries with a Muslim majority. Christian missionaries establish schools and hospitals in rural areas of these regions, providing assistance to local communities while also sharing Gospel. .

Consider how difficult it is for Christian missionaries in Muslim countries when local newspapers run stories like this about the USA.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Consider how difficult it is for Christian missionaries in Muslim countries when local newspapers run stories like this about the USA.

I certainly consider that the US is not a theocracy, and this kind of bigoted baloney should not have a place in our government.

 

[RileyG]

"Why does everybody keep calling us bigots?"

I think many people are misinformed on Islam. Not on purpose. Most Muslims are peaceful people.

 

[iluvatar5150]

I think many people are misinformed on Islam. Not on purpose.

The people doing the misinforming are definitely doing it on purpose.

 

[RileyG]

The people doing the misinforming are definitely doing it on purpose.

Yes, I can agree to that.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

There's two different facets of this discussion.

A) Equality under the law

B) Cultural implications


A - is pretty cut and dry, if they're flat out saying they would have no issues with a Methodist or Lutheran Church/School doing the same, but they don't want a Muslim Church/School doing it, then that's a pretty clear case of unequal application of the law, and they're in the wrong.

B - this one's a little more murky.

1) Because even though it's not politically correct to say out loud, the reality is that Islam does come bundled with some certain hostilities toward non-Muslims. (however, to dovetail that into point A, you could probably find some instances where that's true of other religions that operate schools as well)

2) If a deeply conservative Christian religious entity had their eyes set on expansion in a traditionally progressive area, does anyone think that would happen without significant pushback?

While this example isn't perfect "feature parity", it does highlight an example of where progressive areas are willing to "fight" against groups that don't share the same values of the region.

Per NPR/PBS:

Boy Scouts on the Verge of Losing California Tax Breaks | KQED

California lawmakers are on the verge of passing bill that would punish groups for LGBT discrimination.

www.kqed.org

California hasn't been shy about using institutional power to limit the influence of groups or organizations that cut against their values via preferential access to regulatory frameworks.

 

[rjs330]

We HAVE to have an HONEST conversation. Just shouting "bigotry" doesn't work anymore. Islamism is the biggest and most deadly threat in the world today.

Those that believe in Islam are causing great harm in the western world because its holds the very thing that people are concerned about. The mesh of religion and government. People are concerned so much over Christian Nationalism that they are missing the real threat to western democracies, Islam and the importation of those from nations that govern and live in that world.

They come and have no intention of assimilating. Instead they come and re-create that which they left. Separate communities, separate laws and separate schools. All under the religion of Islam.

Europe has started to take notice of all the problems, but it's almost too late. There are already places in the US where it is too late.

Let's hope we can put a stop to it in America before we find ourselves like places in Europe, trying to recover. We see places like Minnesota and Dearborn and see what is coming if we don't stop it.

 

[Larniavc]

Islamism is the biggest and most deadly threat in the world today.

More than malaria? Or climate change? Or the surprise arrival of a catastrophically large meteorite impact?

Do you mean ‘biggest threat to Christianity’?

I know a bunch of Muslims and they are no different to Christians insofar as they believe in a version of the Abrahamic faith.

They are certainly not shouting ‘Death to the non-religious’ down my way.

 

[essentialsaltes]

We HAVE to have an HONEST conversation. Just shouting "bigotry" doesn't work anymore.

I'm just asserting the First Amendment. The conversation was settled 200+ years ago.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I know a bunch of Muslims and they are no different to Christians insofar as they believe in a version of the Abrahamic faith.

They are certainly not shouting ‘Death to the non-religious’ down my way.

There are differences in the two sets of doctrines (despite both being downstream of Abrahamic faith)

And one of those crucial differences is that the Christianity's texts make no direct prescription for consolidation of government power and religious power, whereas, it's a fundamental idea in the Islamic texts.

Making one set of teachings less likely to produce adherents that are amenable to the idea of a separation of Church and state.

And the proof is in the pudding:
There are 5 actual recognized Theocracies on the planet right now, all are of the same religion (Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Mauretania) -- 6 if you want to count Vatican City.

And if you expand the scope look at nations that have an officially codified state religion used to guide governance:
Islam - 27
Christianity - 9 (used to be more, but many of disestablished in the past 70 years)
Judaism 1
Hinduism 0 (Nepal was the last one, but disestablished and went secular in 2006)


So, by the numbers:
Of the ~120 countries that are majority Christian, they've been consistently moving toward disestablishment and only have 9 left that have it as a codified state religion

Of the ~50 countries that are majority Muslim countries, 5 are full blown theocracies, and another 27 have codified state religions.


I don't know that a concern can be dismissed as a "baseless overblown fear" if it's something that's both A) prescribed in the texts, and B) ends up being the end result 2/3 of the time.

And when you consider the following polling data:

And so when you consider that, for a country like Britain, the majority of their Muslim migrants since 2012 are coming from Pakistan and Bangladesh (both are areas where 80%+ favor making Sharia the official laws of the country)

Or in the case of France, many coming from Morocco and Tunisia

That's going to create some cultural clashes.

To use a US-domestic example:
If 150,000 people from rural, conservative evangelical Alabama and South Carolina all decided to pack up and move to San Francisco purely for the economic opportunities, but wanted to import and preserve their same social values they had in their home state with them, the residents of San Fran would be understandably concerned about some cultural impacts (especially if the new arrivals were consolidating some areas of the city where the concentration was high enough that they had the numbers to snag a few city council seats)


We've actually had some examples of it in the US.

There's a Detroit suburb of Hamtramck that is an example.

They underwent a major demographic shift and reached the tipping point where they occupied over half of the city council seats.

Some of the legislative changes that were made afterwards.
- Amending the city noise ordinance so that the Muslim call to prayer could be broadcast through loudspeakers throughout that city at 6am and 10pm.
- Amending the city animal welfare code so that ritual animal slaughter could be performed in peoples' back yards
- Carving out funding for Halal meal compliance at public schools


So if they're willing to enact those types of changes to consolidate religious rules with public governance rules for things that are within a city government's purview when they effectively control a city, why would we expect the pattern to be any different if it were a different level of government?

 

[BCP1928]

There are differences in the two sets of doctrines (despite both being downstream of Abrahamic faith)

And one of those crucial differences is that the Christianity's texts make no direct prescription for consolidation of government power and religious power, whereas, it's a fundamental idea in the Islamic texts.

Making one set of teachings less likely to produce adherents that are amenable to the idea of a separation of Church and state.

And the proof is in the pudding:
There are 5 actual recognized Theocracies on the planet right now, all are of the same religion (Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Mauretania) -- 6 if you want to count Vatican City.

And if you expand the scope look at nations that have an officially codified state religion used to guide governance:
Islam - 27
Christianity - 9 (used to be more, but many of disestablished in the past 70 years)
Judaism 1
Hinduism 0 (Nepal was the last one, but disestablished and went secular in 2006)


So, by the numbers:
Of the ~120 countries that are majority Christian, they've been consistently moving toward disestablishment and only have 9 left that have it as a codified state religion

Of the ~50 countries that are majority Muslim countries, 5 are full blown theocracies, and another 27 have codified state religions.


I don't know that a concern can be dismissed as a "baseless overblown fear" if it's something that's both A) prescribed in the texts, and B) ends up being the end result 2/3 of the time.

And when you consider the following polling data:
View attachment 374067

And so when you consider that, for a country like Britain, the majority of their Muslim migrants since 2012 are coming from Pakistan and Bangladesh (both are areas where 80%+ favor making Sharia the official laws of the country)

Or in the case of France, many coming from Morocco and Tunisia

That's going to create some cultural clashes.

To use a US-domestic example:
If 150,000 people from rural, conservative evangelical Alabama and South Carolina all decided to pack up and move to San Francisco purely for the economic opportunities, but wanted to import and preserve their same social values they had in their home state with them, the residents of San Fran would be understandably concerned about some cultural impacts (especially if the new arrivals were consolidating some areas of the city where the concentration was high enough that they had the numbers to snag a few city council seats)


We've actually had some examples of it in the US.

There's a Detroit suburb of Hamtramck that is an example.

They underwent a major demographic shift and reached the tipping point where they occupied over half of the city council seats.

Some of the legislative changes that were made afterwards.
- Amending the city noise ordinance so that the Muslim call to prayer could be broadcast through loudspeakers throughout that city at 6am and 10pm.
- Amending the city animal welfare code so that ritual animal slaughter could be performed in peoples' back yards
- Carving out funding for Halal meal compliance at public schools


So if they're willing to enact those types of changes to consolidate religious rules with public governance rules for things that are within a city government's purview when they effectively control a city, why would we expect the pattern to be any different if it were a different level of government?

Which one of those provisions violates the 1st Amendment?

 

[FAITH-IN-HIM]

We HAVE to have an HONEST conversation. Just shouting "bigotry" doesn't work anymore. Islamism is the biggest and most deadly threat in the world today.

Those that believe in Islam are causing great harm in the western world because its holds the very thing that people are concerned about. The mesh of religion and government. People are concerned so much over Christian Nationalism that they are missing the real threat to western democracies, Islam and the importation of those from nations that govern and live in that world.

They come and have no intention of assimilating. Instead they come and re-create that which they left. Separate communities, separate laws and separate schools. All under the religion of Islam.

Europe has started to take notice of all the problems, but it's almost too late. There are already places in the US where it is too late.

Let's hope we can put a stop to it in America before we find ourselves like places in Europe, trying to recover. We see places like Minnesota and Dearborn and see what is coming if we don't stop it.

There are more Christians living in Muslim-majority countries than there are Christians living in the United States of America.

Consider the potential impact on Christian communities if a local newspaper in Baghdad or Karachi reported that the United States would not permit the establishment of an Islamic educational institution because Americans fear Islam is threat to American society?

Are you concerned about Christians' safety in Islamic countries, or your concern is only about American Christians?

 

[iluvatar5150]

We HAVE to have an HONEST conversation.

That would be nice, wouldn't it?

Islamism is the biggest and most deadly threat in the world today.

Well, that didn't last long.

They come and have no intention of assimilating. Instead they come and re-create that which they left. Separate communities, separate laws and separate schools. All under the religion of Islam.

I don't know why I still get flabbergasted at the ignorance and double standards you guys keep applying towards Muslims (and other immigrants).

First of all, most immigrants to this country, at any time, have established their own separate communities and tried to at least partly recreate what they left behind. Most big cities have their own immigrant enclaves like Little Italy, Chinatown, and Little Havana. Hacidic Jews have some in the NYC region; they even have one here in Baltimore, though it's not as neatly delineated as others.

The east coast is littered with cities, states, and towns named after places in Europe, often those their settlers left behind.

Moving beyond immigrants, evangelicals have long advocated for living somewhat removed from "worldly" society. They've got their own schools; often segregate into their own social circles, and have some of their own parallel media industries. More extreme than that, Amish and Mennonite communities have segregated themselves to a degree far beyond what most immigrants do. Amish teens are excommunicated for assimilating.

 

[essentialsaltes]

I'm just asserting the First Amendment. The conversation was settled 200+ years ago.

But maybe we can have a different conversation. Maybe you can join us and try strengthening the First Amendment rather than chipping away at it.

If you don't want government funded 'madrassas', then you have to eliminate government funding for private religious schools. If you don't want the Five Pillars of Islam on the wall, you have to take down the 10 Commandments.