‘Unconstitutional’: In Massachusetts, Leftists Want to Give Islam Privileged Status
BY ROBERT SPENCER
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Just in case you’re not celebrating diversity enthusiastically enough yet, here is more reason to start waving those diversity pom-poms: a new bill in Massachusetts would give Muslims privileged status. Here we see it yet again: “diversity, equity and inclusion” efforts are inherently and in always and every case a gateway to the preferential treatment of the Left’s favored groups.
“Islam must dominate, and not be dominated,” said Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the old jihadi would be mighty pleased with these recent developments in Massachusetts. In line with the fact that Islamic texts and teachings frequently exhort Muslims to subjugate Infidels (who must be made to “pay the jizya with willing submission and feel subdued,” according to Qur’an 9:29), and never envisions the two living as equals under secular law, some Muslims in the Bay State are working with their Leftist allies toward achieving a privileged position that other groups do not enjoy.
Focus On Western Islamism (FWI) reported Wednesday that “the Massachusetts state legislature is considering a bill that would promote and privilege the participation of Muslims in state politics.” That seems innocuous enough on its face, but actually, this bill would require the state to do for Muslims what it does for no other group. The bill, which is entitled “An Act promoting the civil rights and inclusion of American Muslims in the commonwealth,” would “establish a commission charged with promoting the participation of Muslims in the governance of the state.” Yes, Muslims are specifically named.
This commission would “identify and recommend qualified American Muslims for appointive positions at all levels of government, including boards and commissions, as the commission considers necessary and appropriate.” No such commissions exist for Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, or anyone else. Hassan al-Banna would be delighted.
FWI notes that the executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, “posted a celebratory tweet about the introduction of the bill.” It shows Amatul-Wadud standing next to one of the sponsors of the bill, Massachusetts State Senator James B. Eldridge (D-Islamopandering), despite the fact Amatul-Wadud has served as the lawyer for Muslims of America (MOA), “which has sent its members to Pakistan for extremist indoctrination and military training.” Nothing to be concerned about in that, right?
Amatul-Wadud has also “promoted the conspiracy theories put forth by MOA’s founder, Pakistani cleric Mubarak Ali Gilani,” retweeting an article that “claims that the terror group ISIS (and indeed, Wahhabism itself) is a creation of British intelligence, that 9/11 was an inside job, that WTC-7 was destroyed by controlled demolition, and that America was manipulated into fighting Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein for the benefit of the Jews.” Of course! In such circles, Islamic antisemitism is never far beneath the surface.
Steve Resnicoff, director of DePaul College of Law Center for Jewish Law and Judaic Studies, stated the obvious when he called the Massachusetts bill “an unprecedented and unconstitutional effort to promote one religion, Islam, over all others,” and said that “it would clearly violate the principle of separation of church and state,” as it “calls for the creation of a government entity that would broadly endeavor to benefit the interests of Muslims.”
Related: UN Secretary-General: ‘For Well Over a Millennium, Islam’s Message of Peace Has Inspired People’
Massachusetts attorney Karen Hurvitz agrees with Resnicoff: “The proposed legislation seeking to aid Islam is unconstitutional on its face… Perhaps the proponents of this legislation are unaware of the First Amendment or its history. Perhaps they are used to the 26 countries where Islam is the official religion and where the practice of other religions is not permitted. That is not the United States.”
Not yet, anyway. But there will be more bills of this kind as the Left’s passion for diversity increasingly reveals itself as a way to get special favors and privileged status for its in-groups.
That initiative coincides neatly with the supremacist imperative of traditional Islam, which some Muslims in the West are only too happy to collaborate with Leftists in order to further. And given the fact that Islam, with its monarchical Allah exercising sole and absolute, unquestionable power, lends itself to authoritarian government.
That’s another reason why Leftists, whose taste for authoritarianism is increasingly obvious, are only too happy to introduce bills of this kind and promote Islam above and beyond all other religions. In the authoritarian state toward which the Left is working, the more people who believe they have a religious obligation to obey the ruler, the better. Muhammad commands just that in the famous hadith: “You should listen to and obey your ruler even if he was an Ethiopian (black) slave whose head looks like a raisin.” (Bukhari 9.93.7142) Perfect.
LTRP Note: Please see editors notes below this letter.
