Posted on 01/13/2019 6:09:01 AM PST by Popman
Dr. Shahid Shafi enters a Tarrant County Republican Party executive committee meeting at Faith Creek Church in Richland Hills on Thursday before a failed attempt to oust him from his vice-chairmanship because he’s Muslim. Leslie Boorhem-Stephenson for The Texas Tribune Shahid Shafi will retain his role as vice-chairman of the Tarrant County Republican Party despite a push from a small faction of precinct chairs to remove him from his post because he’s Muslim.
Shafi, a trauma surgeon and Southlake City Council member, came to the U.S. in 1990 and became a naturalized citizen in 2009. The attacks on his religion, however, came shortly after Tarrant County GOP Chair Darl Easton appointed him to a leadership role within the county party in July.
Those who were in favor of Shafi’s removal said he’s unequipped to be vice-chairman because he doesn’t represent all Tarrant County Republicans due to his religion. They’ve also said Islamic ideologies run counter to the U.S. Constitution — an assertion many Texas GOP officials have called bigoted and Shafi himself has vehemently denied.
Dorrie O’Brien, one of the precinct chairs leading the charge against Shafi, previously said her support for ousting him stems not from his religion, but whether he supports Islam or is connected “to Islamic terror groups,” the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
The failed attempt to oust Shafi by a small local faction drew national attention as well as condemnation from some of the state’s top Republicans. In a statement Wednesday, Gov. Greg Abbott said “the promise of freedom of religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment in the Constitution; and Article 1, Section 4 of the Texas Constitution states that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust in this state.”
“Religious freedom is at the core of who we are as a nation and state, and attacks on Dr. Shafi because of his faith are contrary to this guiding principle,” the governor concluded.
Easton, one of Shafi’s defenders, told The Texas Tribune earlier this week that the movement to remove Shafi was “about religious prejudice.” He was not immediately available for additional comment Thursday.
Former Tarrant County precinct chair Sara Legvold said she was concerned that Shafi could be connected to the Muslim brotherhood — yet offered no evidence other than the fact that he’s a Muslim. Legvold did not vote on the motion to recall Shafi, but sat outside Thursday’s closed-door meeting wearing a burqa to “represent the Islamization of our county, our state and our country.”
“You already see it in the workplace where Muslims demand they’re able to wear their hijab and demand they get a prayer room,” she said. “When was the last time a Christian was allowed to have a separate place to say their prayers?”
Legvold also said that Shafi’s opponents had been vilified.
“They’ve said nothing but horrible things about us — that we’re bigots and Islamophobes and white supremacists — when we’re just patriots who care for our country,” she said.
Though the movement to reconsider Shafi’s appointment was afoot well ahead of last year’s midterm elections, Thursday’s vote comes just months after Tarrant County — considered the most conservative urban county in the country — narrowly flipped in favor of Texas Democrats’ star senatorial candidate, Beto O’Rourke. In Tarrant County and the surrounding Dallas-Fort Worth region, several Texas Senate and House seats went to Democrats, including the district previously held by conservative state Sen. Konni Burton of Colleyville.
Tripp Bryant, a State Republican Executive Committee representative from Senate District 22 that includes part of Tarrant, said it was “appalling” members of the Tarrant County party were being divisive over someone’s religion months after Republicans in the area made nail-biters of races that had once been safe wins. He noted that Republicans U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Ron Wright lost in the county.
“In my personal opinion, they need to pull their heads out of their fourth point of contact and they need to focus on winning elections and stop pointing the finger at Muslims,” Bryant said.
Another precinct chair called Thursday’s motion “bullshit.”
“I’m a Jewish precinct chair,” John Seidenstein said, “does this mean I’m next?”
When he proves himself unequal to the task, when he shows he is not a conservative constitutionalist, then remove him. Until then, let him do his job.
Read the Koran.
I put her in no box. The Koran did.
And you took a stupid life risk. Read their book.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse, especially Koranic law.
The guy that appointed him to the post is the one that should be sent packing.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Koranic law says you get substandard care from the Doctor.
If you take stupid risk with yourself and your children,
that is a risk you take. Other people would not.
It is no different with a affirmative action Doc.
Wow...I can think of hundred ways to "tunnel" into our system besides being a trauma Dr. and living here for 29 years and participating in our government system as a conservative....
But, you are probably right, he's just waiting for the right moment to have a case of SJS (Sudden Jihad Syndrome) SMH...
You seem well aware of the concept of ignorance....
You assume many things about this Dr. as in he is an Islamist and follows Koranic law. He gives non- Muslims sub standard care besides being under the supervision of medical boards and hospital administration...
He has no known connection to MB or any other Islamic group.
But, you are probably right.../ S
PS. I would almost guarantee at some point in your life you were under the care of a Muslim...I see you survived. Hard to believe....
Muslims cannot sincerely take the oath of citizenship.
It’s against their religion.
Fortunately for them, lying to infidels is allowed by their religion.
Texans can thank George W. Bush and Rick Perry for having more muslims than many states.
They invited them in large numbers.
>>Texans can thank George W. Bush and Rick Perry for having more muslims than many states. They invited them in large numbers.
*********************************************************
Didn’t know this, thanks. I remember GWB referring to islam as a “great little religion”. We were shocked at the time. Now we know it fit right in with his globalist activities.
Islam is unique for the religion mandating a government be set up to privilege it.
Fundamentalist Muslims want that government set up worldwide. Moderate Muslims say this lifestyle is for us, but you have the right to live the way you want.
The Almaddhi and Sufi Muslims are the unitarians of the Muslim world. They were the first to move in mass to the West, especially from Pakistan where the Shariah based constitution says “almaddhi is anti-Islamic”. It would be like our Constitution say Quakers are not Christians ... and we can discriminate against non-Christians.
It is that first wave of peaceful, integrationist Muslims 40-50 years ago that explains why the UK thought all Muslims are peaceful and capable of integration.
The problem is that the newest Muslim migrants are poor fundamentalists. In the UK has had Almaddhi Muslims harassed, beaten and at least one killed by the newcomers.
We cannot smear all Muslims as a blanket bad group. Doing so lets the left and Muslims smear all Christians and conservatives with labels, and they have the systematic power to oppress us per their prejudices.
Going after a moderate Muslim doctor because he’s Muslim hurts the party. It makes us look like the blind bigots they already think we are. It tears down a cultural conservative who isn’t our enemy. It wastes energy that could be used dealing with the ballot-harvesting that probably swung Tarrant county blue.
And instead, we get a few on the far-right tearing down the Muslim doctor and undermining the party. They’re our SJWs.
I hear you, but understand the sentiment: For every Ahmadi or Sufi, there are ten Tlaibs or Omars (our new Reps).
First of all, who gives a rat's ass about your personal opinion?
...they need to pull their heads out...
And just who is "they"?
Concerned citizens that are aware of the creeping incrementalism of Sharia Law from these muzzies?
Concerned citizens that have lived through a generation of muzzies and their lying, deceiving terrorist ways?
...they need to focus on winning elections and stop pointing the finger at Muslims,” Bryant said.
I would rather lose the election to a damned dumb azz dimocrat than I would a so-called "conservative Muslim".
And as long as the damned muzzies the world over continue to point their guns and bombs at US, we will continue to point the finger at THEM.
“In my personal opinion...”
Please don’t misquote me...
I never wrote that...
Do you need glasses or a reading comprehension class?
You rationalize and minimize. That is your dysfunctional human defect.
I do not.
Read Supremist literature as a child, then that is YOUR problem, the Islamist. It is NOT MY problem. Instead I read to treat everyone as yourself equally.
Read books about Boundaries. They let the good in and the bad out.
Whenever you willfully consult an Islamic Muslim Doctor, you let the BAD IN. I did not read and follow the Koran hate book. The Doctor did.
Buyer beware. Quit minimizing other people’s risky bad behavior such as reading hate, supremist literature, the Koran.
You take stupid risk. I take safe risks. That is boundaries.
My wife’s physician for many years, also from Iran.
A very good doctor.
He did refer to the old country as Persia, never Iran.
Islam AS A SYSTEM does not differentiate between the secular and the sacred. In the Middle Ages, Europe had ecclesiastical courts -- legal institutions in which violations of sacred mandates were judged. These were separate from civil courts, where the more common charges were heard.
That has never been the case in America. "Congress shall make no law ..." and all that. And even in the most religious of European countries these days, religious courts have little or no power, where they exist at all as anything but relics.
That has never changed in Islam. The Taliban and the theocracies of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan are living examples. Violations of religious mandates in those countries ARE violations of law. There is no difference.
Christianity makes it clear that Christians are to "render under Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto the Lord that which is the Lord's." It not only permits separation of church and state, it commands it.
Some say the Baha'i religion is a modernized version of the Zorastic.
“There are still elements of the Zorastic religion to which they belonged surviving in Persian culture.”
—
IIRC that was Freddy Mercury’s religion.
.
As I said, she saved my life.
Have you ever read our “book”? It puts a lot of people in a box, too. Most don’t follow it to a Tee.
Ever heard about the Good Samaritan? He helped a man most Samaritans wouldn’t touch.
You remind me of someone in AA who says “If I’m ever down and need help I want a REAL acoholic to help me”. He’s an idiot. I put him in the stupid box.
Now let me allow you to show just how racist you APPEAR to be. I was instrumental in helping to get her Visa extended. What will you call me for that? Or does one “stupid” cover all?
Hey, idiot...the quote was from the Tripp Bryant, who made a statement in the body of the article, i.e., "“In my personal opinion, they need to pull their heads out of their fourth point of contact and they need to focus on winning elections and stop pointing the finger at Muslims,” Bryant said."
Why would I quote you or even give a rat's ass as to anything you may have written or not written?
Go back to bed and get up on the right side this time.
Or drink more coffee.
Dumb ass.
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