Yes dammit

[prog]

The election cycle is nearly done, and Friday's On the Media was the first acknowledgment I'd heard in any broadcast venue of the inherent Islamophobia in countering "He's a Muslim!" with "No he isn't!" but then failing to take any steps into "That said, why would that even matter?"

I have some sympathy for the defense, here (it's best not to linger too long in the enemy's frame) but it still grates me a little every time I see it.

Comments

[jadelennox]

Yeah, I bitch about the same thing over firbolg way.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

That was one of my favorite moments in AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka's great speech to the steelworkers' union. He went there.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

It would matter for exactly the same reason Mike Huckabee's Christianity mattered.

It would also matter if he was lying about it, although I take it that you're assuming a hypotheticalverse where that isn't the case.

One day there will be a Muslim president of the US, and it is likely he'll face the same kind of suspicion that Huckabee would have faced, and in my view quite properly so given where the Muslim centre is these days. It's easy to find educated, mainstream Muslims who sincerely believe that "homosexuals are abominations who should be killed" (that's actually a direct quote from a Muslim guy I know slightly, who is relatively liberal in most other respects.) I'm sure you could find plenty of people who agree with that sentiment in Mike Huckabee's church, and so I'd like to think that both groups would get a certain amount of religion-specific vetting.