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Posted on 11/08/2006 10:28:43 AM PST by NYer
MINNEAPOLIS, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Voters elected a black Democrat as the first Muslim in Congress on Tuesday after a race in which he advocated quick U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and made little mention of his faith.
Keith Ellison, a 43-year-old lawyer and state representative, defeated two rivals, television networks said, to succeed retiring Democrat Martin Sabo in a seat that has been held by Democrats since 1963.
Ellison, who converted to Islam as a 19-year-old college student in his native Detroit, won with the help of Muslims among a coalition of liberal, anti-war voters.
He advocates an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq along with strongly liberal views. While Ellison did not often speak of his faith during the campaign, awareness of his candidacy drew interest from Muslims well beyond the district centered in Minneapolis.
A significant community of Somali immigrants in Minneapolis cast their first votes for him in the crowded September primary. Ellison also was the surprise choice of party regulars.
While Muslim-Americans make up less than 3 percent of the U.S. population and have largely been a non-factor in terms of political power, get-out-the-vote efforts in several Muslim communities could indicate they may become an emerging force.
Roughly 2 million Muslims are registered U.S. voters, and their ranks increased by tens of thousands in the weeks prior to Tuesday's mid-term elections, Muslim groups have said.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by Islamic militants, Muslim-Americans have become sensitized to what many feel is an erosion of their civil rights. U.S. foreign policy that targets Muslim countries also has generated a sense of urgency, experts said.
"(Americans) treat us differently after Sept. 11. My own father was attacked," said Ellison supporter Khadra Darsame, a 1995 immigrant from Somalia. "Ellison said everybody matters equally and he told us what he would do ... he will do the right thing."
Born into a Roman Catholic family in Detroit, Ellison said his values were shaped by both faiths, along with his grandfather's civil rights work in the Deep South.
Opponents focused on Ellison's sloppy handling of his taxes and a slew of unpaid parking tickets, along with his one-time affiliation with the Nation of Islam, whose leader, Louis Farrakhan, has been criticized for making anti-Semitic remarks. Ellison subsequently said he worked with the group largely to promote the 1995 Million Man March.
Great - a guy who doesn't pay his taxes, doesn't pay his parking tickets and thinks whites are the devil...
And so it starts....
Good. Make Pelosi wear a burkha to not offend him in Congress.
Reuters tells another lie: He converted from Catholicism to the Nation of Islam (Louis Farrakhan's cult) which is NOT Islam. It's closer to Scientology than true Islam. It was only after 4-5 years there that he converted to Islam. That said, he's not going to vote any further to the left than the outgoing incumbent Martin Olav Sabo did. It would be hard to go further left than that. He is now my Congressman, and when he sends out his constituent questionnaire asking me what's the biggest problem facing the country, I'm going to write in "Islamo-fascism". I doubt that will be one of the printed choices though.
Which would have the side benefit of saving the eyesight of millions of Americans. We need to add Shrillary and Feinswine to the list, plus the fugly 300-year-old White House reporter.
Allahu Uffda!
Maybe the Mother Plane will snatch him up before he starts serving his term?
Muslims should be banned from holding public office.
Period.
What about the rest of us?
You mean we actually have to see her FACE???
Not fair!
UNLESS THIS CLOWN'S VERY FIRST ACT IS TO STAND IN THE WELL AND SWEAR ON HIS MOTHER'S HONOR AND VIGOROUSLY DENOUNCE THE RACICAL ISLAMISTS (WHILE HOOKED UP TO A POLYGRAPH) HE SHOULD BE DENIED HIS SEAT.
You truly believe that? Why not just deport or detain them.
I believe anyone that cannot uphold the Constitution should be banned from office. If they lie, it will become evident pretty quickly based on their actions.
He isn't much of a Muslim. He's pro-choice and pro-gay rights. Mostly a Muslim in Name Only.
I can't imagine a pro-choice, pro-gay rights person also believing in the radicalism of Osama bin laden - seems to me that is quite opposite.
He's being called 'shameful' by the queda-types. Guess he needs to shape up.
Pelosi getting a burkha means never having to go under a plastic surgeon's knife ever again.
MAYBE THE DEMS GIVING ILLEGALS THE RIGHT TO VOTE WOULD BE A GOOD THING AS MOST MEXICANS ARE DEVOUT CATHOLICS (SARCASM)
Muslims are pathological liars who define "truth" and "lies" as "what promotes Islam" and "what doesn't promote Islam." A polygraph is useless on someone who lies and registers no physiological response.
You are, of course, correct.
Your comment reminds me of a scene near the end of "Lawrence of Arabia."
In a conversation with the British Governor who says to Lawrence "You are a very good liar," the king (played by the brilliant Alec Guiness) chimes in with
"HE SHOULD BE. HE'S ALMOST AN ARAB."
We trust these people at our very great -- possibly terminal -- peril. We simply DO NOT understand a culture that different from our own and never will.
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