Islamophobia

It wasn’t the 21-year-old Michael Enright who drunkenly slashed his New York city cab driver after asking ‘Are you Muslim?’ It was the Republican National Committee. From August of 2006, the RNC decided to demonize Muslims and Islam as a campaign ploy, to scare apparently easily spooked white Christians. In recent weeks, Newt Gingrich sharpened […]

Chris Matthews of Hardball takes down New York gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio for his scapegoating of Muslims and aggressive, manipulative tactics, suggesting that the meanness is a calculated attempt to come back from being 30% behind his Democratic rival Andrew Cuomo in the polls. Watch Matthews catch Lazio misquoting Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who said […]

Jon Stewart points out that Fox News anchors and guests are vilifying Saudi prince and financier Alwaleed bin Talal as a financial backer of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Muslim-American clergyman who seeks to build a community center in lower Manhattan. The problem: Alwaleed bin Talal is part owner of Fox News. Stewart’s special correspondents […]

The demonstration held on Sunday against the Park 51 Muslim community center in lower Manhattan was an attempt by the right wing to strike at first amendment freedoms, but at the same time, it was simply a revival of urban policies of discrimination that were routine in the last century. That the demonstration had racist […]

Evangelist (and hateful bigot) Franklin Graham said this weekend that President Obama was ‘born a Muslim’ because, he said, Islam is transmitted through the father just as Judaism is transmitted through the mother. Presumably it is this sort of thinking that has led an increasing number of Americans to believe, incorrectly, that Obama is a […]

The decision of a US district court to strike down Proposition 8, the California referendum item that made gay marriage illegal after it had earlier been legalized by the state assembly, was a blow for individual rights over a tyranny of the majority. In its form, it resembles the decision of the New York authorities […]

A tiny, fringe fundamentalist cult in Florida, of the sort that American popular Christianity specializes in producing, has announced that it will burn the Qur’an on the anniversary of September 11 because it considers Islam an evil religion. The group also targets gays and the Wicca worship of the Goddess. This is more cult-like thinking, […]

Sarah Palin tweeted, “Ground Zero mosque supporters, doesn’t it stab you in the heart as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls. refudiate.” The tweet was later taken down and replaced with English, though to the same effect. Here is the original, courtesy twitpic. There are many things wrong with the original tweet. […]