Posted on 09/01/2012 8:50:54 AM PDT by procrustes
By Kari Huus, NBC News
In the run-up to the Democratic National Convention, several hundred Muslims attended "Jumah," or Friday prayer, in a park in Charlotte, N.C., as part of an effort to mobilize Muslims and get them engaged in political discourse. But the event sparked some of the same negative reaction that the organizers were hoping to combat.
Organizers said they hoped to use the prayers, a town hall meeting planned for Saturday and cultural festival to open events to non-Muslims and bring attention to problems that they believe disproportionately affect Muslims but are ignored by both political parties.
They cite what they consider invasive practices under the Patriot Act, discrimination against mosque construction through the use of zoning laws, "anti-shariah" bills being passed by state and local governments and more generally a climate of Islamophobia.
"One of the reasons for pulling folks together is to stay focused," said Jibril Hough, one of the organizers from the nonprofit Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs, or BIMA. "A lot of our issues that we are going to be bringing up will not be discussed by RNC or DNC. Both parties have supported deals that are eroding our civil liberties."
While about 300 Muslims prayed in Marshall Park in downtown Charlotte, the Christian group Operation Save America showed up to protest. Islam is one of the three main targets of its protests, along with abortion clinics and gay rights events. A news release from the organization on Thursday explained its reasoning.
"Hatred toward the God of the Bible (Jesus) is the great unifier of abortion, homosexuality, and Islam," said the release. "Hatred toward God and the nation He made great – America, is the platform of the DNC."
That protest had a permit and was anticipated, said Hough, and the police were poised to protect Operation Save America's right to protest without allowing them to disrupt the Muslim prayer.
"I told (the leader of the protest) I support his First Amendment right," said Hough. "But just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean you should do it."
The BIMA events were posted alongside hundreds of others on the official web site of the DNC host committee, none of which is sanctioned or supported by the committee, to let people attending the convention know what else is going on in town.
But the BIMA events were removed from the calender after negative publicity.
Some critics of Islam described both Hough and the headline speaker, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, as Islamic radicals.
In an interview on Fox television on Thursday, Zudhi Jasser, a controversial figure within the Muslim community who calls out "extremists" within his own faith, compared the views of BIMA to the KKK or the Nazi party, urging the DNC to distance itself from the event.
"They clearly are part of the global Islamist movement and really are an insurgency within this country," said Jasser, an Arizona physician who says many American Muslim leaders hope to replace American democracy with rule by Islamic law.
Meanwhile, in articles like this one in Frontpage.com, the right-wing blogosphere dissected Wahhaj's sermons and history, intimating that his conservative views were dangerous and embraced by the Democratic Party.
A senior DNC host committee official confirmed that the BIMA events had been removed from the website's "upcoming events" page.
"This event, like many others on the page, was user generated," a senior Host Committee official told NBC News on Friday. "Upon further review, and because speakers for the event and statements and positions from event organizers were not appropriate and relevant to the Host Committee, Charlotte in 2012 has decided to remove the event from our events calendar."
"This is about caving in to fear and ignorance," said Hough. On the other hand, he said, the prayer event "was very open, open to all, in the public square. Thousands will read about it and further understanding of Muslims and what is important to us."
Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs (BIMA)
One thing you’ll always hear from hardcore islamics is the “Abraham wished he had been muslim”, which is insanity.
But that is why muslim converts don’t say “convert”. They say “Revert”.
You are perceptive.
Go tell the Navajo, the Mojave, the Pima, the Pueblo, the Havasupai, the Warm Springs, the Ute, the Apache, and the Sioux that THEY are NOT “indigenous people”!
I would like some of thst mohammedan pigheads to go to the Councils of these folks, and ‘share their message of peace’. I doubt if they would be found, ever again!
There are Great Medicine Wheels in the Western US. like all “sacriligious infidel artifacts”, they too, would be taken apart by these “messengers of peace”!
I’m half Mojave, but this is my country, my flag, and I have served as both a Cold War and Viet warrior. Ain’t no johnny jihad getting a hug from me!
I can answer that.
The NAGS are nowhere on this, and never will raise a peep about this. That's because the NAGS are scared, and the reason they're scared is because the muslims will gladly kill them and blow up their headquarters building a couple of blocks from the White House.
You see, unlike the "dominant phallocentric patrimony" that the NAGS made their name "fighting" back in the 1970s, and who wouldn't hurt a fly, the muslims are an actual enemy.
The NAGS got where they are by "fighting" a made up, straw-man, phony enemy, in the shape of the typical male American. The entire fictitious enterprise wouldn't have gotten off the ground if it were not for the wholehearted efforts of the default media, which breathed life into the central lie of the feminist movement with its power to manipulate symbols and images independent of the reality which they might otherwise represent.
The NAGS are scared of the muslims because the muslims have demonstrated their willingness to kill those who inconvenience them. For that reason, muslim women are on their own. They can't expect even a sideward glance from the NAGS.
>>>”...intimating that Wahhaj’s conservative views were dangerous and embraced by the Democratic Party...”<<<
According to these d!psh!ts Wahhaj is a ‘conservative’.
Achmadinejad is a ‘conservative’.
Assad is a ‘conservative’.
Putin is a ‘conservative’.
Hu Jintao is a ‘conservative’.
Hell, even Mitt Romney is a ‘conservative’.
Apparently the only good liberals left are Barry, Fidel and, on a good day, Chief Justice John Roberts.
Have you seen the way their women have to dress? WHERE are the Fk’ing NAGS on this?
Instead, she praised it because (accoding to her) it masked the woman’s sexuality. So, basically, she was saying that the burka put a slim, sexy vixen on the same footing as an obese hag. She argued that the burka would result in people focusing on the woman’s talents and personality rather than her potential as a sex object. [Note, the woman making this argument was herself closer to the obese hag category].
So...there you have it. The “Feminist” movement has gone from buring bras in the 1960s to championing the wearing of body tents today.
So that menas that we can show up with our bibles, right?
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Interesting take.
I do agree with you that NAGS (and liberals in general) are cowards. They will spit in the face of a straw-man opponent when they know its a safe target (like Christians or Capitalists).
But they will lick the boots of those who will (in reality) put them in chains. That’s because the those people won’t (for the most part) observe the rules of civility & restraint inherent in Western democracy. When confronted with such an opponent, the Libs will find a reason why the offending behavior is actually positive (see my post #13).
Show me the money. Or better yet, show them your shoes.
Their conservatism is different from your conservatisml
What they want to conserve is different from what you want to conserve.
“salafism”
noun
a militant group of extremist Sunnis who believe themselves the only correct interpreters of the Koran and consider moderate Muslims to be infidels; seek to convert all Muslims and to insure that its own fundamentalist version of Islam will dominate the world
I’m all in favor of the public learning more about Islam, if it includes the whole story. If the truth is known about Islam, the vast majority of Americans will take a very objective view of them, then decide they are no more welcome to America’s melting pot than an equal number of Thuggees.
For much the same reasons.
Don’t worry about it. It’s too late for the Muslims to help the DNC.
All true-believing Christians are already praying for a change in November 2012. Paul Ryan alone has an army of women praying their rosary beads every night. And my bible study has a prayer for the conversion of Obama.
We need to continue our prayers and to remember HOPE comes from God, not from Obama.
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