Naperville Islamic Center’s mosque plan clears first hurdle

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Bob Pitt

The Islamic Center of Naperville cleared the first of several hurdles Wednesday in its quest to build a mosque on the city’s far southwest side. Members of the Naperville Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously agreed to recommend to the city council that the 14 acre lot at 9931 S. 248th Avenue in Will County be rezoned residential and that its plot of subdivision be approved.

There is a four-bedroom home on the property which the current owners, HOPE United Church of Christ, has used for office space. The rest of the site is farmland. Church officials have stressed that the Islamic Center wants to utilize the property in the same manner as HOPE United.

Those recommendations clear the way for the city council to consider annexation of the site as soon as Dec. 20. The Islamic Center, which has a contract on the property, is seeking annexation to gain access to the city’s water and sewer services in preparation for a mosque members hope to build within five to 10 years.

Several neighbors and residents attempted to speak both in favor and against the proposed annexation but acting Chairwoman Patty Gustin cut them off, in an attempt to keep the meeting focused, and told them they need to direct their concerns to the city council when the issue is on the council agenda.

Daily Herald, 3 November 2011

Nashville church agrees to host Lou Ann Zelenik’s anti-sharia conference … but Geller withdraws

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Bob Pitt

Cornerstone Church Former congressional candidate Lou Ann Zelenik said Monday she has found a place to hold a freedom conference after getting turned down by 20 hotels.

Cornerstone Church in the Madison community on Nashville’s northeast side agreed to hold the event, “The Constitution or Sharia Conference.” The event will be held at 10 a.m. Nov. 11. “There was no room in the inn for freedom, but pastor Maury Davis of Cornerstone Church opened his doors for free speech,” said Zelenik, who lost the 2010 Republican primary to U.S. Rep. Diane Black of Gallatin.

However, headliner Pamela Geller, who runs the Atlas Shrugs anti-Islam blog, has bowed out because the event is no longer at a secular venue. “While I have nothing against speaking in a church per se, I refuse to have my message driven from the public square,” she wrote in an email.

Geller and Zelenik referred to Hutton Hotel’s decision last week to cancel booking for the event in Nashville, citing safety concerns.

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Islam is not a religion but a totalitarian theocracy, Republican candidate tells CAIR

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Bob Pitt

A Republican candidate for Hillsborough Clerk of Circuit Court on Monday fired off a letter saying Islam is “not a religion” but a theocracy that is “totalitarian and littered with human rights violations.”

Scott D. Barrish, a 35-year-old private security officer who previously ran unsuccessfully for the Hillsborough School Board, sent the letter to the Council of American-Islamic Relations. He signed it as a member of the Hillsborough County Republican Party’s executive committee. “Your efforts in espousing Islam in America and Florida will not succeed,” Barrish wrote. “This is us vs. you. In the great words of the late President Ronald Reagan, ‘I win, you lose!'”

Barrish said in an interview that he sent the e-mail letter because the group had engaged in what he called publicity stunts. CAIR, for instance, thanked Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio for declining to speak at the upcoming Florida tea party convention because it featured a presentation by an “anti-Islam extremist.”

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Republican politicians won’t be speaking at Florida Tea Party convention

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Bob Pitt

Representatives from the offices of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Gov. Rick Scott report that neither will be attending the Florida Tea Party Convention scheduled for this weekend, despite their inclusion on the event’s agenda.

Both are included as speakers on the current convention agenda, along with a slew of right-wing activists and speakers.

Alex Burgos, Rubio’s communications director, tells The Florida Independent that the senator will not be attending the convention in Daytona Beach. Scott’s scheduling office also says that “at this time” the event is not on the governor’s “official schedule”. “Things could change,” a representative says.

The event will feature speakers such as former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed, anti-Islam blogger Pam Geller and G. Edward Griffin. Griffin is an anti-Federal Reserve, anti-United Nations and anti-communist conspiracy theorist who describes himself as a “life member” of the John Birch Society – a historically infamous anti-communist group.

Geller is best known for her blog Atlas Shrugs, which has been described by The New York Times as a “site that attacks Islam with a rhetoric venomous enough that PayPal at one point branded it a hate site.” The attendance of Geller, and other anti-Islam activists, caught the attention of the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-FL).

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Texas gun instructor faces loss of licence over anti-Muslim ad

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Bob Pitt

On a YouTube clip that has gone viral, brash Texas handgun instructor Crockett Keller defiantly tells Muslims and non-Christian Arabs he won’t teach them how to handle a firearm. State officials see the ad as possible discrimination, and may revoke Keller’s instructor license.

Tens of thousands of YouTube viewers have watched the $175 ad for Keller’s business in the small community of Mason, which has won him a handful of admirers but that embarrassed locals say misrepresents their community. Muslim groups dismissed the 65-year-old as a bigot.

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Wichita mosque damaged by fire had received anti-Islam messages

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Bob Pitt

A Muslim mosque in west Wichita that was heavily damaged by fire early Monday had received anti-Islam letters in recent months. Somebody also had begun turning on its outside water faucet overnight to hike its water bill, its leader said.

Abdelkarim Jibril, president of the Islamic Association of Mid Kansas at 3406 W. Taft, said the letters put down Islam, called the prophet Muhammad a pig, and enclosed drawings that mocked him. The mosque received about eight of the letters starting four to six months ago, but they had stopped about a month ago, he said.

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Internet crusaders target all Muslims, not just extremists

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Bob Pitt

Over at his Middle Class Dub blog Colm Ó Broin has a good analysis of Jihad Watch and Atlas Shrugs and their demonisation of Muslims, which as he points out has clear parallels with 20th century antisemitism. A shorter version of the article has been published in the Irish language paper Gaelscéal.

The only quibble I would have is that the author is being too charitable when he states that Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller should be “presumed innocent” of inspiring Anders Breivik. The “documentary” Islam: What the West Needs to Know, which prominently features contributions from Spencer, so impressed Breivik that he reproduced a 20-page transcript of the film in his manifesto 2083: A European Declaration of Independence. Indeed Breivik’s manifesto contains over fifty approving references to Spencer.

Ó Broin himself demolishes Spencer’s laughable attempt to dissociate himself from the Norwegian mass murderer:

“Reacting to claims his writings inspired Anders Breivik, Spencer said that this was like blaming the Beatles for the Tate/La Bianca murders because Charles Manson said he was inspired to commit them by their song Helter Skelter. This comparison would only be apt however, if Helter Skelter contained lyrics which said Sharon Tate, Leno La Bianca and their friends were involved in an evil conspiracy to take over the US, that the media was helping them and that the US government, police and FBI knew of the plan to enslave the American people but refused to prevent it.”

Pursuing the parallel between Islamophobia and antisemitism, Ó Broin also presents a revealing comparison of statements, on Muslims and Jews respectively, by Robert Spencer and Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher. The accompanying video has been posted on Youtube.

Islamist victory in Tunisia a win for democracy

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Bob Pitt

TUNISIA
Ennahda supporters celebrate election victory

Noah Feldman analyses the success of Ennahda in the Tunisian elections:

Although secularists in Tunisia and Egypt didn’t want elections to come too quickly, they haven’t been heard arguing that elections are a mistake altogether. That is, the ideology of the Arab Spring actually is democracy. The proof is in the willingness of the leading revolutionaries to be beaten by social forces they don’t fully trust.

The Islamists, too, reflect the ideals of democracy. This phenomenon goes back 20 years to Algeria’s experiment in democracy, when Islamists realized for the first time that the public in an Arabic-speaking country would support them only if they declared that Islam and democracy were compatible. Since then, in a gradual process, more and more political Islamists have become democrats. Ennahdha’s Ghannouchi, exiled in Europe for decades, was a thought leader in the process of the Islamist embrace of equal citizenship and equal rights – which makes it especially fitting that his party is playing a primary role in Islamist electoral politics.

Combining pragmatism and principle, mainstream political Islam has undergone an extraordinary democratic transformation. And it has done so in the very years when radical jihadism threatened Islamic democrats with condemnation and murder. From the standpoint of the global ideal of democracy, this is a victory of historic proportions.

Bloomberg, 30 October 2011

Catholic University’s Muslim students should have prayer rooms without crucifix, complaint states

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Bob Pitt

A law school professor has filed a complaint with the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights, alleging that Catholic University of America, a private institution, discriminates against Muslim students.

John F. Banzhaf III claims the school “[denies Muslim students] equal access to the benefits CUA provides to other student groups,” according to a press release, posted on PRLog.

The professor’s allegations stem from the school’s failure to give formal recognition to a Muslim Association, although its law school recognizes a Jewish association, according to the The Tower, Catholic University’s school newspaper.

In addition, Banzhaf says it is unfair that Catholic University does not provide its Muslim students with separate prayer rooms to conduct their daily rituals without being surrounded by religious insignia, such as crucifixes, the press release states.

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