c. 1999 Religion News Service
(Mohamed Nimer is research director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C.)
(UNDATED) American Muslims, who number as many as 5 million, are increasingly flexing their political muscle _ from voting in greater numbers, to entering the public debate and contributing to campaigns.
Surveys suggest that American Muslim voters are split almost evenly among Republican, Democratic and independent political affiliations. However, most Muslims identify with conservative issues.
They care dearly about family values, oppose abortion and detest the entertainment industry’s reliance on sexual indecency. Muslims are also tough on crime and favor strong law enforcement.
In the 1996 presidential election, major Muslim groups came very close to endorsing Republican candidate Bob Dole. In Wisconsin, Muslims have supported the school voucher program that enables them to cover the cost of sending their children to private schools.
It would appear, then, that Muslims are a fertile field for future Republican growth.
Unfortunately, the failure of the Republican leadership to purge bigotry from within the party’s ranks is being interpreted by many Muslims as a clear sign that GOP power brokers do not value their votes.
There are several instances when conservative Republicans have expressed intolerance toward non-Christians, in general, and Muslims, in particular. For example, Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, whose favor is sought by many Republican politicians, has consistently made disparaging remarks abouts Muslims.
Robertson has also questioned the wisdom of accommodating Islamic religious practices in the United States, and, in his book “The New World Order,” called for the exclusion of Muslims from public office.
An analyst with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank ideologically linked to the GOP, implied that Muslim immigrants pose a security threat to the United States because some might support Islamic radicals. Last year, rank-and-file Republican conservatives fell silent at remarks by Dr. Henry Jordan, a former Republican lieutenant governor hopeful and South Carolina Board of Education member, who said “screw the Buddhists and kill the Muslims.”
More recently an American Muslim request that the Senate Republican Policy Committee take a stand against bigotry was denied. The request came in response to comments authored by committee policy analyst James Jatras, who called monotheistic Islam a fraudulent religion based on moon worship. He also suggested that NATO policy in the Balkans was foolish because it aided Muslims.
Moreover, he called the presence of Muslims in America a “population infiltration” and a threat requiring immediate countering. This perception of public policy on the basis of religious enmity toward an entire community of Americans is a classical case of hate and prejudice.
Unfortunately, Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, stubbornly stood by Jatras, maintaining that his views were protected speech and that disagreement is part of the democratic process.
To Muslims, the senator’s failure to recognize the fundamental difference between dispute and hate is an ominous sign of the lack of sensitivity toward non-Christians among senior Republican Party leaders.
There is nothing wrong with religious values informing public debate, even when they advocate a sense of affinity towards people of the same faith. Islam teaches that the believers constitute one community.
But this positive sense of religious identity must always be subordinated to a clear commitment to justice and moral conduct. Islam places value on supporting co-religionists, and others, too, who are victimized by aggression. The Prophet Muhammad taught the early Muslims that supporting their brethren in religion also means confronting them when they perpetrate injustice.
As America’s religious and ethnic diversity increases, it behooves Republican leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who are drawing the wagons and exhibiting increased signs of intolerance and exclusiveness.
The Republican leadership would do the conservative movement a great service if it tried to cultivate the pluralistic nature of its religious vote. Unfortunately, the party has failed so far to sustain a meaningful conservative dialogue that includes America’s minority religious traditions.
For the Republican Party to sustain its self-styled “big tent” image, it has to demonstrate _ through actions _ that anti-minority rhetoric and proposals will not be tolerated.
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