Violate the Constitution? Christian Right Group Says Yes
The (AFA) usually about homosexuals and pornography, but in the aftermath of the shootings at Fort Hood last week, the ultraconservative religious right group has a new concern: Muslims in the U.S. military. Ban them, urges , AFA director of issues analysis.
The day after Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim, is alleged to have shot and killed 13 people at the Texas army post and wounded more than two dozen others, Fischer posted his anti-Muslim screed on the AFA website.
鈥淚t is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military,鈥� Fischer wrote. 鈥淭he reason is simple: the more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security. Devout Muslims, who accept the teachings of the prophet as divinely inspired, believe it is their duty to kill infidels. Yesterday鈥檚 massacre is living proof.鈥�
Fischer conceded that most U.S. Muslims don鈥檛 shoot their fellow soldiers. No matter, because 鈥渢he more devout a Muslim is, the more likely he is to lie to you through his teeth,鈥� Fischer writes. 鈥淵ou invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it鈥檚 used, and we鈥檒l welcome you back with open arms. This is not Islamophobia. It is Islamo-realism. The barbarians are no longer at the gate. They鈥檙e inside the fort, and it鈥檚 time for the insanity to stop.鈥�
Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said that barring Muslims from serving in the U.S. military would violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment that ensures equal application of laws among people regardless of their race, faith and the like. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a bigoted, racist, vile position,鈥� Weinstein said of the AFA article. 鈥淚t鈥檚 un-American. It鈥檚 inhuman. It violates our Constitution.鈥�
Weinstein spent 10 years in the U.S. Air Force as a military attorney serving as both a federal prosecutor and criminal defense attorney. Two sons and a daughter-in-law also are Air Force Academy graduates. Weinstein was legal counsel to the Reagan administration for more than three years and then served as general counsel to billionaire H. Ross Perot and his company, quitting in 2006 to devote more time to the foundation he formed to combat the evangelical, fundamentalist religious right.
鈥淲e should not tolerate each other鈥檚 faith, we should respect them,鈥� Weinstein said. 鈥淪hould we not trust any evangelical Christians because Scott Roeder killed the abortion doctor, George Tiller? [Roeder has not been convicted of last summer鈥檚 murder in Kansas, but confessed to it in an interview with The Associated Press last week.] Should we not trust any Jews because Bernie Madoff is Jewish?鈥�
Brigham Young University law professor Cole Durham agrees that barring people of a particular religion from military service would be unconstitutional. Durham, who specializes in international religious freedom law, added that barring Muslims from military service would be foolish even if it were legal given that the U.S. government is trying to convince the world that it is not anti-Muslim. 鈥淭his is obviously a terrible tragedy,鈥� Durham said of the Fort Hood shootings. 鈥淸But] to hold the entire Muslim community in America hostage to one terrible incident does not respect Islam and the rights of Muslims to be full citizens in this country.鈥�
The AFA normally devotes itself to such as 鈥渄ecency and morality,鈥� 鈥減reservation of marriage and family鈥� and 鈥渟anctity of human life.鈥� The Mississippi-based organization was formed in 1977 by the Rev. Donald Wildmon, and was originally called the National Federation for Decency. Its members have boycotted a long list of companies 鈥� IKEA, Sears, Hallmark Cards and McDonald鈥檚, to name but a few 鈥� deemed to be supportive of homosexuality, abortion, pornography and more. The AFA boycotted Walt Disney Company for nine years for accommodating the 鈥済ay agenda鈥� by extending benefits to partners of employees in same-sex relationships.
Even so, Fischer鈥檚 Muslim rant isn鈥檛 the first time AFA has piped up about a religious minority in the United States. When it learned that a Hindu chaplain from Reno, Nev., would be allowed to deliver the opening prayer in the U.S. Senate in 2007, AFA urged its members to E-mail, write letters and call their senators and object to 鈥渟eeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god.鈥�
