Religious Persecution by the President of the United States

Maine Progressive · Jul 13, 2026

ThatRobGuy said:
And if those little girls said "it's hot, I don't want to have to wear this thing outside in the summer heat", what do you suppose the outcome would be in terms of the response from the men and religious leaders in their community?

Given the purpose of the hijab that I mentioned earlier, it is concerning that the men in their community would be making them wear that, because that's an admission of something that's pretty messed up.

Are there that many men in that particular subset of the Muslim community that are sexually attracted to 5-10 year olds that they have to make them wear "lust-deflectors" so they won't have dirty thoughts about them?

Odd...Turkish and Egyptian Muslims don't seem to feel the need to do that to little kids and adolescent females

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I don't like the fact that they make the full grown women do it either...but at least that's operating within the age of adulthood/consent.

As noted before, the Somali culture is a uniquely terrible one... Between the domestic abuse rates, the 90%+ female genital mutilation rate, and the "marrying kids" rate, they're in a class of their own.

If it make someone a "bigot" to say "Yeah, I don't see any value in importing thousands of people who think it's normal to beat women and lust after elementary school children", then so be it.

My mistake for tossing the word bigot around. The more accurate word is anecdotal fallacy which those who fear and loathe Somalis have fallen into. I’ve made my point and then some. To continue is useless. As they say, there’s no arguing with a certain type as they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. I’m done. Blessings.

ThatRobGuy · Jul 13, 2026

Tropical Wilds said:
The thing is you can see how this fear mongering has made some really good people fearful of the general public. I have a hijab-wearing woman who walks by my house twice a day and I generally see her on both walks. It took me a solid 3 months of saying "good morning" or "nice to see you" or "have fun today!" before the woman even acknowledged me, much less get a reply. Now she'll see me outside, ask about my garden, ask about my crocheting project I'm doing on the bench in front of my house, comment on the weather, and now we even trade my sourdough for some ridiculously amazing rice pancake flatbread thing. She is a nice lady, but her first instinct upon moving into a community is self-seclusion and she is too intimidated by strangers to talk to them... That means we, as Americans, have fallen short of the ideals our country was founded on, sometimes at the expense of another American citizen (because this woman is, in fact, a naturalized citizen and has a child who was born on US soil).

To be clear, it's never been the women/girls wearing the hijab anyone was concerned about, they're the actual victims...it's the men making them wear the hijab (whether it be by social coercion or outright force) that people are concerned about.

Bradskii · Jul 13, 2026

ThatRobGuy said:
What we're talking about here is more than just an expression of religious faith.

Well, you are.

ThatRobGuy said:
Are those other things worn within the context of "you need to cover up because it's your fault if you make a man lust so much he can't help himself but to force himself on your, and you will be punished and bring dishonor to your family"? And is that rationale applied to 5 year olds?

Only a moron would answer yes. And it would be especially moronic when it comes to young girls.

I'm trying to decide if you're supporting Trump's post because you're naive enough to think he's concerned about religious based misogyny (hah!), whether you support this racist tripe or whether this is your usual schtick of attempting to appear as a true liberal - 'Look, I don't like Trump but I can support his views on Muslims!'

Can I ask that if you and your wife enter a Buddhist temple and you're both wearing shorts then you cover your legs and your wife her shoulders? Can I ask that if you and your wife enter a mosque, you remove your footwear and your wife dresses modestly and covers her head?

If your young daughter asks why she has to cover her head as well, what do you tell her? Do you tell her that the people who worship there will blame her if she doesn't and gets assaulted?

Maybe you don't have a daughter. But if you do and she reads your posts then she'll know that that is exactly what you mean. Hopefully she'll have Muslim friends in school and she can get one of their families to invite you over and explain their faith to you. And the women can explain why they choose to wear the hijab.

Personally, I think they'll be wasting their time.

ThatRobGuy · Jul 13, 2026

Maine Progressive said:
My mistake for tossing the word bigot around. The more accurate word is anecdotal fallacy which those who fear and loathe Somalis have fallen into. I’ve made my point and then some. To continue is useless. As they say, there’s no arguing with a certain type as they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. I’m done. Blessings.

So are you saying the statistics I've provided are false? If not, then it's not a fallacy.

As far as your reference to the old quote of "Never Argue With Stupid People. They Will Drag You Down To Their Level and Then Beat You With Experience" (which has been attributed to everyone from Mark Twain to George Carlin)

...would you say it's stupid for a group of one people (who espouse a certain set of values) to blindly defend another group (with polar opposite values) purely for the sake of political beefs?

I can assure you, any beefs you have with mainstream republicans in the US over matters of things like women's rights, gay rights, religious freedom, separation of church and state, etc... Somali communities are far more regressive on.

So why the knee jerk reaction to defend it?

If Southern Baptists were behaving the same way and espousing those identical values, it'd be all that was talked about on MSNBC and The View.

"A subset of my political opponents oppose them being here for racial reasons, therefore, I have to find a reason why it's a good thing that they're here (even if they're worse on the issues I claim are important)" would be pretty stupid, would it not?

ThatRobGuy · Jul 13, 2026

Bradskii said:
Only a moron would answer yes. And it would be especially moronic when it comes to young girls.

I'm trying to decide if you're supporting Trump's post because you're naive enough to think he's concerned about religious based misogyny (hah!), whether you support this racist tripe or whether this is your usual schtick of attempting to appear as a true liberal - 'Look, I don't like Trump but I can support his views on Muslims!'

Can I ask that if you and your wife enter a Buddhist temple and you're both wearing shorts then you cover your legs and your wife her shoulders? Can I ask that if you and your wife enter a mosque, you remove your footwear and your wife dresses modestly and covers her head?

If your young daughter asks why she has to cover her head as well, what do you tell her? Do you tell her that the people who worship there will blame her if she doesn't and gets assaulted?

Maybe you don't have a daughter. But if you do and she reads your posts then she'll know that that is exactly what you mean. Hopefully she'll have Muslim friends in school and she can get one of their families to invite you over and explain their faith to you. And the women can explain why they choose to wear the hijab.

Personally, I think they'll be wasting their time.

I don't really care what Trump says one way or the other...

"Importing a bunch of people with values antithetical to ours is not a good thing" is a universally understood sentiment that people selectively choose to acknowledge when it's politically risk-free. What? Am I supposed to actually believe that progressives are honestly cool with brining in more people with views on women and gays that are more regressive than that of Ted Cruz?

I don't have a wife (on paper). I have a live-in romantic partner of several years (no government paperwork required, government licensed marriage is a sham) who I love deeply and who's Indian from a Hindu family... and her family most certainly aren't fans of the fact that their daughter didn't go with their arranged marriage prescription and shacked up with a white boy lol.

And I haven't minced words about what I see are the glaring flaws with their caste system and arranged marriage customs... because they certainly don't self-censor.

I believe I've even used the exact words "That's ridiculous, we don't do that here"

The beauty of freedom of (and from) religion in the US is that I'm under no obligation to have to pretend to show reverence or honor the customs of religion that's values are antithetical to mine in the name of political correctness just because said religion happens to be predominately non-white "and it would be rude and could be perceived as racist to insult it".

For the record, I have Southern Baptists, Catholics, and Jews in my extended family (technically I guess I'd be 1/4 Jewish -- my grandpa on my dad's side was born into a Jewish family, but then defected to Catholicism when he met my grandma), although it's not from my mom's side, so they wouldn't count it?), they don't get kid gloves treatment either.

Bradskii · Jul 13, 2026

ThatRobGuy said:
...would you say it's stupid for a group of one people (who espouse a certain set of values) to blindly defend another group...

Your bias reveals itself constantly. And why 'blindly'?

What people here are doing is rejecting the dross that Trump has posted, denigrating Muslims. Not an individual Muslim or even a few Muslims. But all Muslims. It's a dog whistle because people with the same mindset as Trump will then point to those young girls in Hijabs and trot out more bile about all Muslims. It's the very definition of racial and religious bigotry. All expected and all entirely and thoughtlessly Pavlovian.

And instead of accepting that Trump is a bigot and that was the only reason for him reposting that junk, you spend umpteen posts not just excusing him, but adding to the dross and supporting him.

So people aren't 'blindly supporting another group'. They are pointing out that you have joined those who will attack another group and tar every member of that group with the same brush.

Bradskii · Jul 13, 2026

ThatRobGuy said:
I don't really care what Trump says one way or the other...

"Importing a bunch of people with values antithetical to ours is not a good thing" is a universally understood sentiment that people selectively choose to acknowledge when it's politically risk-free. What? Am I supposed to actually believe that progressives are honestly cool with brining in more people with views on women and gays that are more regressive than that of Ted Cruz?

I don't have a wife (on paper). I have a live-in romantic partner of several years (no government paperwork required, government licensed marriage is a sham) who I love deeply and who's Indian from a Hindu family... and her family most certainly aren't fans of the fact that their daughter didn't go with their arranged marriage prescription and shacked up with a white boy lol.

And I haven't minced words about what I see are the glaring flaws with their caste system and arranged marriage customs... because they certainly don't self-censor.

I believe I've even used the exact words "That's ridiculous, we don't do that here"

The beauty of freedom of (and from) religion in the US is that I'm under no obligation to have to pretend to show reverence or honor the customs of religion that's values are antithetical to mine in the name of political correctness just because said religion happens to be predominately non-white "and it would be rude and could be perceived as racist to insult it".

For the record, I have Southern Baptists, Catholics, and Jews in my extended family (technically I guess I'd be 1/4 Jewish -- my grandpa on my dad's side was born into a Jewish family, but then defected to Catholicism when he met my grandma), although it's not from my mom's side, so they wouldn't count it?), they don't get kid gloves treatment either.

Good grief. This is nothing more than a risible 'I'm not a racist/religious bigot - some of my best friends are Indian/Jewish/Hindu etc etc'.

I'll just note that we've now discovered that you don't want any Hindu immigrants as well as Muslim ones, because "importing a bunch of people with values antithetical to ours is not a good thing"

Stopped_lurking · Jul 13, 2026

ThatRobGuy said:
So are you saying the statistics I've provided are false? If not, then it's not a fallacy.

I don't know, but I can present some evidence that regarding FGM/FGC, somali immigrants to Sweden don't approve of it. Not newly arrived nor those established in society.

Baseline data from a planned RCT on attitudes to female genital cutting after migration: when are interventions justified? - PMC

To present the primary outcomes from a baseline study on attitudes towards female genital cutting (FGC) after migration. Baseline data from a planned cluster randomised, controlled trial. Face-to-face interviews were used to collect questionnaire ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

ETA, attitudes regarding FGM/FGC in the US (I had to look for it, I have not read all the references), among immigrants also seem to show diminished support for the procedures.

Attitudes and Experiences Surrounding Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in the United States: A Scoping Review - PMC

To identify research and gaps in literature about FGM/C–related attitudes and experiences among individuals from FGM/C–practicing countries living in the United States, we conducted a scoping review guided by Arksey and O’Malley’s framework. We ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Which raises the question, how representative are your numbers for somali-americans?

Is the driving motivation for hijab use even the same? It might have turned into a ethnic marker, more than anything else.

ThatRobGuy said:
As far as your reference to the old quote of "Never Argue With Stupid People. They Will Drag You Down To Their Level and Then Beat You With Experience" (which has been attributed to everyone from Mark Twain to George Carlin)

...would you say it's stupid for a group of one people (who espouse a certain set of values) to blindly defend another group (with polar opposite values) purely for the sake of political beefs?

I can assure you, any beefs you have with mainstream republicans in the US over matters of things like women's rights, gay rights, religious freedom, separation of church and state, etc... Somali communities are far more regressive on.

So why the knee jerk reaction to defend it?

If Southern Baptists were behaving the same way and espousing those identical values, it'd be all that was talked about on MSNBC and The View.

"A subset of my political opponents oppose them being here for racial reasons, therefore, I have to find a reason why it's a good thing that they're here (even if they're worse on the issues I claim are important)" would be pretty stupid, would it not?

Did the clip contain a message about ending wokeness? It is because of wokeness, FGM is frowned upon and being counteracted.

Hans Blaster · Jul 13, 2026

ThatRobGuy said:
I would saying mutilating the genitals of females because "only men should have sexual pleasure" and marrying off little girls to creepy old men or keeping them covered from head to toe in the name of "that way we won't be sexually tempted" would be exhibiting a pretty bad part of the Muslim holy books, would it not?

What? FGM is not in the Quran. It is also not the topic, nor responsive to my response to your last attempt ("settlers" in Palestine) to distract from Trump's bigotry (the OP subject) and deflect into what seems to be just an attack on islam or at least some islamic immigrant groups.

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN · Jul 14, 2026

wing2000 said:
The POTUS is attacking 5 year old celebrating a school achievement. Trump has a long history of attacking vulnerable groups....but this is a new low.

Trump preferer young and blond, not brown kids, that covers their face and dress very modest.

Tropical Wilds · Jul 14, 2026

ThatRobGuy said:
To be clear, it's never been the women/girls wearing the hijab anyone was concerned about, they're the actual victims...it's the men making them wear the hijab (whether it be by social coercion or outright force) that people are concerned about.

They aren’t victims, they’re following their faith. And the line between wearing a hijab and purity culture in Christianity can be measured in inches… That is when we boil down why women wear hijabs to “keep men from lusting,” as opposed to the multiple nuances that have nothing to do with “keep men from lusting.”

ThatRobGuy · Jul 14, 2026

Bradskii said:
Your bias reveals itself constantly. And why 'blindly'?

What people here are doing is rejecting the dross that Trump has posted, denigrating Muslims. Not an individual Muslim or even a few Muslims. But all Muslims. It's a dog whistle because people with the same mindset as Trump will then point to those young girls in Hijabs and trot out more bile about all Muslims. It's the very definition of racial and religious bigotry. All expected and all entirely and thoughtlessly Pavlovian.

Bradskii said:
Good grief. This is nothing more than a risible 'I'm not a racist/religious bigot - some of my best friends are Indian/Jewish/Hindu etc etc'.

I'll just note that we've now discovered that you don't want any Hindu immigrants as well as Muslim ones, because "importing a bunch of people with values antithetical to ours is not a good thing"

I think some concepts are being conflated here.

Arab/Indian are ethnicities and are circumstances of birth, Muslim/Hindu ideological preferences are circumstances of choice and can be changed.

So this has nothing to do race.

So the question would be more honestly framed as:
"Do you see increasing numbers of people who choose to practice a problematic ideology in insular communities as a good thing?"

To which my answer would be "no".

Has nothing to do with the color of their skin.

The reason why I said blindly is because there's seemingly no cohesive reasoning behind it. (apart from perhaps pure partisanship)

Progressives hate the values systems of some of the southern evangelical denominations, and if their neighborhoods started getting flooded with people from them, they would be very vocal about it and start sticking up yard signs advertising "XYZ has no home here"

But yet, they'll practically trip over themselves trying to defend the idea of why another group (who holds even more regressive views than than the domestic ideologies they dislike) coming in and changing the composition of the neighborhood "is actually a good thing".

Do you think if 50,000 Southern Baptists and Pentecostals from Kentucky and Alabama moved to a blue city and started changing the culture of some of the neighborhoods and forming enclaves, would any progressives defend them being there and start trotting out "diversity is our strength" talking points? Or would it be more likely that they'd not like it very much and take the attitude of "if that's the kind of culture you wanted to live in, you should have stayed in Kentucky, we don't want those sort of attitudes here in <insert progressive city here>"?

ThatRobGuy · Jul 14, 2026

Tropical Wilds said:
They aren’t victims, they’re following their faith. And the line between wearing a hijab and purity culture in Christianity can be measured in inches… That is when we boil down why women wear hijabs to “keep men from lusting,” as opposed to the multiple nuances that have nothing to do with “keep men from lusting.”

As I noted, for 5 year olds, "their faith" doesn't enter the equation. It's their parents religion they're following.

Unless anyone is suggesting 5 year olds have deeply considered various realms of theology, the afterlife, and philosophy, and after careful consideration, landed on the religion that aligns with their deeply held viewpoints (and it just so happens to be the same exact one as their parents, what a coincidence)

As far as why I boiled it down to that, is because that's what is. As I noted before, it's a values system that entails a very one-sided "modesty" framework, that applies very strictly to women.

Hence the reason the boys and men can hang out in adidas track pants, Nike's and regular t-shirts and hoodies, and all of the women have to be covered from head to toe.

Or when you see family swimming/pool events, the men can wear whatever they want and go shirtless, and they've got their wives and daughters out there in swim-hijabs.

wing2000 · Jul 14, 2026

ThatRobGuy said:
I would saying mutilating the genitals of females because "only men should have sexual pleasure" and marrying off little girls to creepy old men or keeping them covered from head to toe in the name of "that way we won't be sexually tempted" would be exhibiting a pretty bad part of the Muslim holy books, would it not?

Completely off topic for this thread, Rob.

wing2000 · Jul 14, 2026

ThatRobGuy said:
To be clear, it's never been the women/girls wearing the hijab anyone was concerned about, they're the actual victims...it's the men making them wear the hijab (whether it be by social coercion or outright force) that people are concerned about.

...then start your own thread on that topic.

ThatRobGuy · Jul 14, 2026

wing2000 said:
Completely off topic for this thread, Rob.

wing2000 said:
...then start your own thread on that topic.

Trump makes a post drawing attention to the fact that within Somali Muslim enclaves, little kids are being made to wear hijabs.

And yet, the topic of Somali culture, Muslim culture, and hijabs are off limits. Hmmm...

So then am I correct in assuming that people didn't actually want to have a serious holistic conversation about this, and this was just another one of those "Orange man bad and orange and a man, who's also bad and orange not to mention a man...." type of threads where people can lob out accusations of racism, and then get a bunch of charity likes from the amen corner?

Why not hold others to that standard? If this was just intended to be another pile-on "Trump is a racist, and that's the only thing we can talk about, talking about anything else is off topic" thread, why don't people just post in one of the hundreds of threads for that, that already exist? Or perhaps the mods can create one of the safehouse forums for that. Then people looking for that sort of myopic repetitive type of discourse don't have to be bothered with pesky things like nuance and conflicting viewpoints.

Pommer · Jul 14, 2026

News Flash: First Generation Immigrants Don’t Assimilate Well

RestoreTheJoy · Jul 14, 2026

Maine Progressive said:
July 6, 2026 President Trump posts a video of kindergartners at a graduation ceremony at the Gateway STEM Academy in St Paul, Minnesota requoting the bigoted comment “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.” Thousands of replies piled on with further vile attacks against five-year olds.

“Imagine if these kids were children who were wearing yarmulkes,” she said. “Imagine the reaction people would have. We would all be angry because we should be, because they are just as American as anyone else. And these kids who are wearing a hijab are just as American as the child who goes to a Catholic school that wears a particular uniform.” Minnesota state senator Z. Mohamed.
trump-somali-kindergartners.html

I didn't see it but it sounds like a remark on the unusually high number of kindergartners wearing hijabs in a public school since they are only ONE percent of the population, per statistics. And two percent of the population, in Minnesota.

Perhaps it was a Muslim school and not a public school?

A Muslim site indicates that wearing hijabs is typically after signs of puberty as well. At What Age Do Muslim Wear Hijab – Islamic Guide

Bradskii · Jul 14, 2026

ThatRobGuy said:
I think...

And nothing in reply to the fact that you don't want any Hindu immigrants either. I guess we'll just let that stand.

ThatRobGuy · Jul 14, 2026

Bradskii said:
And nothing in reply to the fact that you don't want any Hindu immigrants either. I guess we'll just let that stand.

It was already addressed in a previous post (I believe it was 2 or 3 posts ago)

Describing that I've even said this in front of my GF/Partner's family
I believe I've even used the exact words "That's ridiculous, we don't do that here"
(in reference to the caste system and arranged marriages)

In terms of Hinduism (specifically the brands of it that involve essentially pimping out daughter based on whose family has the best dowry), or a caste system that predestines a person to their professional and social lot in life based on some hokum about whether or not one's great great great grandfather was a warrior, a merchant, or a laborer...

No, I've never woken up in the morning thinking "Gee, I wish we had more people with that ideology here to help shape the culture and affect political outcomes"

Religious Persecution by the President of the United States

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