Category Archives: USA

In Islamic law, Gingrich sees a mortal threat to U.S.

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sunday News Gingrich

Long before he announced his presidential run this year, Newt Gingrich had become the most prominent American politician to embrace an alarming premise: that Shariah, or Islamic law, poses a threat to the United States as grave as or graver than terrorism.

“I believe Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it,” Mr. Gingrich said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington in July 2010 devoted to what he suggested were the hidden dangers of Islamic radicalism. “I think it’s that straightforward and that real.”

Continue reading →

CAIR: new Army policy will allow JROTC hijabs, turbans

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In October, the Washington-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization wrote to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta after a 14-year-old Muslim student at Ravenwood High School in Brentwood, Tenn., was forced to transfer out of a JROTC class when her commanding officers told her she could not wear hijab while marching in the September homecoming parade.

Continue reading →

Islamic Center gains annexation into Naperville

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Whether the Islamic Center of Naperville‘s next mosque is built five years from now or 20, it will be built according to the same rules and conditions as each of the city’s other religious institutions.

City council members Monday unanimously approved the residential zoning and annexation of the center’s 14-acre lot at 9931 S. 248th Ave. on the city’s far southwest side in Will County. In doing so, they also rejected demands of neighboring homeowners to insert conditional restrictions on lighting, traffic and parking and the installation of berming and landscaping.

Daily Herald, 19 December 2011

Posted in USA

Islamic Center gains annexation into Naperville

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Whether the Islamic Center of Naperville‘s next mosque is built five years from now or 20, it will be built according to the same rules and conditions as each of the city’s other religious institutions.

City council members Monday unanimously approved the residential zoning and annexation of the center’s 14-acre lot at 9931 S. 248th Ave. on the city’s far southwest side in Will County. In doing so, they also rejected demands of neighboring homeowners to insert conditional restrictions on lighting, traffic and parking and the installation of berming and landscaping.

Daily Herald, 19 December 2011

Man shouted ‘jihad’ at Indian men outside Michigan bar, police allege

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BAY CITY — A Bangor Township man was charged with ethnic intimidation after Bay City police alleged he shouted “Osama bin Laden” and “jihad” at two men outside a bar in Bay City’s Midland Street Historic District.

Delane D. Bell is scheduled to appear Thursday for a preliminary evidence hearing before District Judge Timothy J. Kelly.

Bell, 25, is charged with single counts of ethnic intimidation, a two-year felony, malicious destruction of property, a one-year misdemeanor, and assault or assault and battery, a 93-day misdemeanor.

Continue reading →

Imams from Memphis who were kicked off flight sue Delta Air Lines

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Masudur Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul

Standing near the Delta Air Lines ticket counter Monday, Muslim cleric Masudur Rahman described what it felt like to be kicked off a flight in Memphis earlier this year while traveling to a religious conference.

“It was really a humiliation,” said Rahman, an adjunct instructor of Arabic at the University of Memphis.

On May 6, Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul, who were both dressed in traditional Muslim attire, were on their way to a conference in Charlotte, N.C., hosted by the North American Imams Federation. The topic of the conference was “Islamaphobia.”

At Memphis International Airport, the two clerics were cleared to fly during an initial TSA checkpoint and again after a random, secondary check and search at the gate. They boarded the plane, but were soon booted off.

Continue reading →

Detroit protest against Lowe’s

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lowe's protest

ALLEN PARK, Mich. — Protesters descended on a Lowe’s store in one of the country’s largest Arab-American communities on Saturday, calling for a boycott after the home improvement chain pulled its ads from a reality television show about five Muslim families living in Michigan.

About 100 people gathered outside the store in Allen Park, a Detroit suburb adjacent to the city where “All-American Muslim” is filmed. Lowe’s said this week that the TLC show had become a “lightning rod” for complaints, following an email campaign by a conservative Christian group.

Protesters including Christian clergy and lawmakers called for unity and held signs that read “Boycott Bigotry” and chanted “God Bless America, shame on Lowe’s” during the rally, which was organized by a coalition of Christian, Muslim and civil rights groups.

Continue reading →

A one-man war on American Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David Caton

“It would be upsetting enough if a well-financed, well-organized mass campaign had misrepresented a television show, insulted an entire religious community and intimidated a national corporation. What makes the attack on ‘All-American Muslim’ more disturbing – and very revealing – is that it was prosecuted by just one person, a person unaffiliated with any established organization on the Christian right, a person who effectively tapped into a groundswell of anti-Muslim bigotry.”

The New York Times examines the role of David Caton, executive director and only known activist of the Florida Family Association.

Interfaith opposition to Pennsylvania anti-sharia bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Critics say a bill introduced by a Pennsylvania state lawmaker amounts to an attack on Shariah law, which is followed by many devout Muslims.

The House bill, introduced by Rep. Rosemarie Swanger, stipulates state courts when deciding cases shall not “consider a foreign legal code or system” lacking “the same fundamental liberties” as the Pennsylvania constitution and the U.S. Constitution.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Thursday a rabbi, an interfaith leader and a Temple University professor had joined the Council on American-Islamic Relations in criticizing the bill.

Continue reading →

Belgium, Islam, and the booomerang of loon idiocy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Apparently the loons are unaware that Amrani is typically a Mizrahi Jewish surname. It is reckless to guess because names can be deceiving, but if Amrani’s Jewish origin is confirmed, will the loons suddenly agree with us that the religious and ethnic heritage of the perpetrator shouldn’t be relevant?

As the bigots are fond of pointing out, Nordine Amrani is of Moroccan extraction, though he was born and raised in Belgium. According to an article in the New York Times, Amrani considered himself Belgian, didn’t speak a word of Arabic, and was not a Muslim.

In the absence of facts, it seems anti-Muslim bigots just manufacture whatever sensational headlines suit their hateful agenda.

LoonWatch demolishes the response of US Islamophobes to the killings in Liege.