Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and high-profile conservative intellectual, announced today that he is officially in the running for the Republican nomination for president. Along the way he’s been playing the politics of religion.

In the speeches and media appearances he did in preparation for his run, he has emphasized two things. The first is the importance of God and morality in the public square, referencing his own conversion to Catholicism to give him credibility. The second is to rail against the dangers of Islam in America….

The irony, of course, is that many of the same slanders leveled at the Catholic Church are now leveled at Islam in America. Catholicism was considered incompatible with liberty, democracy and pluralism. Any inroads made by Catholics into the corridors of power was considered a threat to the American way of life. Catholics were considered loyal to the autocratic Pope, not the American flag. Catholic politicians would enact policies to advantage their Church and hurt American values, everything from appointing an Ambassador to the Vatican to sending public funds to parochial schools.

The “No Popery” signs of previous eras feel remarkably like the “No Sharia” signs of today. The view of the Catholic faith as inherently incompatible with American values mimics today’s view of Islam. And the hysteria about the effects of increasing Catholic influence on American culture sound precisely like today’s fears about Muslims.

Eboo Patel, Washington Post blog, 11 May 2011

South Dakota emergency personnel who gathered Wednesday in Rapid City for a Homeland Security Conference got a controversial presentation about Muslim theology, culture and terrorism.

Walid Shoebat, who says he was a former terrorist in the Palestine Liberation Organization before converting to Christianity, said that Americans should focus on what he called the “culture of terrorism” among Muslims rather than “only the ones who carry out the explosive act”.

Shoebat said closet supporters of terrorism exist throughout the Muslim community in mosques, community groups and in the U.S. armed forces. “You’ve been infiltrated at all levels,” Shoebat said. “Are all Muslims who interpret for the U.S. military terrorists? Of course not. But that doesn’t mean you play Russian roulette.”

Shoebat’s appearance was paid for by a federal grant from the Department of Homeland Security as part of the second annual South Dakota Homeland Security Conference. He also spoke at the first conference last year in Sioux Falls.

Jim Carpenter, director of homeland security for South Dakota, said Shoebat was invited back this year because last year’s speech was among the most popular among the law enforcement, fire, medical and other personnel at the conference. “The critiques and evaluations that came back highly recommended that he come back again,” Carpenter said. “We acted on those, and that’s why he came back.”

In Wednesday’s presentation, Shoebat cited excerpts from the Quran, which is the Muslim holy book, that justified violence against non-Muslims and particularly Jews. These excerpts, he said, showed that Islam itself was inherently violent. He rejected what he called the “myth” that “the Muslim world is divided in two – moderate Islam and extremist Islam”.

Ex-Sen. Jim Abourezk, who is a Christian of Lebanese ancestry, said Shoebat throws “one blanket over all Muslims, whether good or bad, saying they’re all bad”. Shoebat’s rhetoric, Abourezk said, harms Muslims who “would love to be left alone and to be able to worship in the way they see fit”.

“He’s a scam artist and he’s a liar,” Abourezk said. “He doesn’t have any credibility when he claims he was a PLO terrorist.”

Rapid City Journal, 12 May 2011

Cf. Chris Hedges, “Your taxes fund anti-Muslim hatred”, Truthdig, 9 May 2011

Update:  See Richard Bartholomew’s comments at Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 13 May 2011

A state judge ruled that the construction of a controversial mosque in Sheepshead Bay can move forward shortly after a lawyer for the developer hinted that opponents of the plan are terrorists – citing inflammatory graffiti cheering the death of Osama bin Laden at the mosque site.

On Tuesday, Judge Mark Partnow dismissed a lawsuit filed by the anti-mosque organization Bay People and neighbors of the as-of-right project on Voorhies Avenue between E. 28th and E. 29th streets, ruling that the mosque wouldn’t adversely effect the neighborhood.

The ruling came shortly after the lawyer for mosque builder Ahmed Allowey accused opponents of the plan of acting like racist terrorists. “This is entirely motivated by racism,” said attorney Lamis Deek. “[The Bay People] has forced my client to expend his resources for no good cause and terrorize people with the vitriolic rallies that they hold.”

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Sheepshead Bay mosque critics say it will lead to problems with traffic, parking and noise

Protesters who want to stop the construction of a mosque in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay are bringing their case to court on Tuesday, the latest in a series of such disputes across America.

The nation founded on the principle of freedom of religious worship is seeing disputes from Tennessee to New York’s Staten Island, as Muslims wishing to build places of worship run into opposition – almost 10 years after the 9/11 attacks. The most high profile case was the Islamic centre to be built close to Ground Zero in Manhattan – now it’s the turn of what critics call the Brooklyn “mega-mosque”.

Opponents of the Sheepshead Bay development – who include blogger Pamela Geller, an influential critic of Islam – say it will dramatically alter the quality of life in a quiet, residential neighbourhood. Traffic, parking difficulties and the noise of the call to prayer will be disruptive, says the group suing to stop the construction, called Bay People. “The neighbourhood residents are mostly of Italian/Russian/Jewish/Irish descent and will not benefit from having a mosque and a Muslim community centre,” the Bay People website states.

But others accuse the group of a thinly-veiled anti-Muslim agenda.”They are using traffic and noise as this smokescreen for their bigoted agenda against the Muslim community establishing a mosque in Sheepshead Bay,” says Debbie Almontaser of the Muslim Consultative Network, a group advising Sheepshead Bay Muslims.

Ill-feeling has been further stirred by the death of Osama Bin Laden. While the Obama administration has taken pains to assert that Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader and that America’s war is “not against Islam”, a number of public expressions of anti-Muslim sentiment have since occurred around the US.

Almontaser says that since Bin Laden’s killing, the walls of the Sheepshead Bay property have been vandalised with graffiti that says “He is dead”.

BBC News, 10 May 2011

‘Ground Zero mosque’ opponents demonstrate in August 2010

As potential GOP candidates jockey to distinguish themselves heading into primary season, there seems to be at least one issue on which they widely agree: Sharia law is a continuing threat to the United States.

Invoking Sharia and casting it as a growing danger at odds with American principles has become a rallying cry for conservatives. It’s also quickly becoming an unlikely pet issue among 2012 presidential contenders: Potential candidates have almost unilaterally assailed the Islamic code, making it as much a staple of the campaign stump speech as economic reform, job creation and rising gas prices.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann responded to Osama bin Laden’s death not just by praising the U.S. military. She used the news to remind her followers about a threat she considers alive and well.

“A time to express our deepest gratitude to the U.S. military for taking out Osama bin Laden,” Bachmann tweeted. Expanding on her tweet on Facebook, she wrote, “Osama bin Laden dead! May this be the beginning of the end of Sharia-compliant terrorism.”

While the Al Qaeda leader’s death provides a fresh opportunity to target the Islamic code, Republican presidential candidates have had Sharia in their cross hairs for months.

“Creeping Sharia is a huge issue here in the United States,” former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum told POLITICO. Sharia represents an “existential threat to America,” Santorum said during a foreign policy speech several weeks ago. “The enemy is motivated by an interpretation of Islam, Sharia, that is antithetical to American civilization.”

“Even immediately after Sept. 11, we didn’t see this kind of hatred mainstream in our society,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “There seems to be a coordinated effort to both marginalize American Muslims and demonize Islam.”

Politico, 10 May 2011

See also Adam Serwer, “Creeping sharia law becomes an issue in 2012 GOP primary”, The Plum Line, 10 May 2011