Article by Nathan J. Robinson

In 2018, Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Kavanaugh’s confirmation process was contentious, because he was accused of having sexually abused a woman named Christine Blasey Ford when he was a teenager. Kavanaugh responded angrily to the accusations, and conservatives insisted he was being smeared by Democrats for political reasons. As we showed in this magazine, Kavanaugh’s rebuttal to the charges was full of inconsistencies and outright lies, which Senate Democrats failed to press him on. There was, however, a huge amount of discussion of Blasey Ford’s accusations in the press.

There was less discussion of Kavanaugh’s actual jurisprudence. In fact, some liberal supporters of Kavanaugh insisted that because he was intelligent and studious, he was qualified for the Court, with the only unsettled issue being the accusation by Blasey Ford. It was debated whether Kavanaugh deliberately selected attractive female clerks, or whether he was a supportive mentor to women. Certainly his past behavior toward women was highly relevant, particularly in light of the Blasey Ford allegation. The problem was that, even among Senate Democrats, few seemed interested in Kavanaugh’s horrendous record as a judge, including cases in which he immunized torturers from accountability and undermined labor unions in favor of corporations. (When I wrote that Kavanaugh was clearly lying about basic facts concerning the Blasey Ford accusation, I was invited on NPR. When I wrote a long exposé of his horrific court decisions, hardly anyone read it.) It seemed to me at the time that many liberals saw something they describe as character as more important than ideology, even though ideology can have far more serious implications. As Jay Willis put it in a debunking of the “liberal case” for Kavanaugh, they are part of an elite political world that “prioritize[s] comity and civility over the real-world implications of its work.”

I was reminded of the frustrating, narrow debate over Kavanaugh in the discussions around Pete Hegseth, who has now been sworn in as Trump’s Secretary of Defense. As with Kavanaugh, Hegseth was accused of being abusive to women. (His own mother once called him “an abuser of women,” although she retracted her judgment in a recent interview and says she regretted it soon after making it.) There have been numerous accounts of his poor behavior, from getting dragged out of a strip club in uniform while drunk to squandering the funds of two nonprofits he ran (one pro-war and one pro-privatization of the VA). At one he is alleged to have “treated the organization funds like they were a personal expense account,” and even Republican insiders were concerned about his “frequent public intoxication, poor leadership and the toxic work climate he fostered within the organization.” Hegseth paid a $50,000 settlement to a woman who accused him of rape, and his former sister-in-law says he was so terrifying that his wife had to develop an “escape plan” complete with a codeword in case he got out of hand.

These are very serious accusations, although it’s not clear how the Senate should evaluate accusations that have never been put before a jury. I can see why these lurid and disturbing stories predominated in coverage of Hegseth’s nomination. But let’s be clear: this atrocious behavior is just one reason that Hegseth should not have been made the Secretary of Defense. An even more important reason that he should not be Secretary of Defense is that his political beliefs are likely to contribute to atrocities and aggressive war. A person accused of being an abuser and having alcohol problems who also had “benign” beliefs might not do much damage to the world at large in a government post, although the people around them will certainly be affected. Hegseth, however, holds Nazi-like views on Muslims. He makes Donald Rumsfeld look like Mahatma Gandhi. He should not be anywhere near power, even if every single one of the behavioral allegations against him was proven conclusively false.

First, Pete Hegseth is a rancid bigot whose “clash of civilizations” view of humanity will sanction aggressive warfare against the Muslim world. It is fair to say that if Hegseth said any of the things about Judaism that he says about Islam, it would be transparently obvious that he held neo-Nazi beliefs that could easily justify genocide. But there is a double standard on the treatment of the two religions, so that one can get away with horrific comments about Muslims that would (rightly) be career-ruining if spoken about Jewish people. He specifically says that the very presence of Muslims in a society is harmful:

“Islam itself is not compatible with Western forms of government. [Some] countries want to stay free, so they are fighting like hell to block Islam’s spread. In this age, it’s incredibly difficult to remain clear-eyed about the fact that some ideas for society are better than others. And that is where the real fight lives.”

While he cursorily acknowledges the existence of “moderate” Islam (“When appropriate, I am careful to separate individual moderate Muslims from the radical element”), he says that ordinary, non-jihadist Muslims are essentially misinterpreting their own religion, because “the real heart of Islam is much closer to Islamists than to moderates.” He usually uses the term “Islamism” rather than Islam, but repeatedly makes clear that the distinction is essentially unimportant:

“Esmat is a Muslim, not an Islamist. To him it’s a big difference, but in the larger scheme, the distinction becomes less important.
“ Moderate Muslims are battling not just the Islamists but also the bulk of Islamic theology, history, and traditions… the real heart of Islam is much closer to Islamists than to moderates.”

“Islam—the fastest-growing religion in the world—is almost entirely captured and leveraged by Islamists who believe that their mission is the same as their founder’s. Muhammad led armies, enslaved or killed his opponents, and sought to conquer everyone else. Modern Islamists, of course, have the same goal.”

“Islam and Islamism are two branches of the same theological tree. Islamism is a widespread interpretation of Islam that draws on the text of the Muslims’ holy book, the Quran, which tells the story of a leader who, empowered by his god, spread the Islamic faith by subjugation and the sword. This is a fact, whether it makes you uncomfortable or not.”

“Millions of Muslims have joined modernity and choose to live peacefully; but they do so by disregarding intolerant and violent Qur’anic passages that are no less authoritative today than they were a thousand years ago. Islamists choose to interpret the Quran as it is written, not as modernity tries to edit it.”

So Hegseth is clear: the very presence of Muslims in the United States is a problem, regardless of their interpretation of their faith or their behavior. “The United Kingdom is done for,” he says, citing the fact that many cities now have Muslim mayors. “The British were invaded, and they didn’t even know it.” As “Muslims’ birth rates have grown,” countries that permit Muslim immigration are being destroyed, because they have “import[ed] unskilled, noncontributing Islamist throngs from the Middle East.” The U.S., he says, is next. “Just like the Christian crusaders who pushed back the Muslim hordes in the twelfth century, American Crusaders will need to muster the same courage against Islamists today.” He thinks those who “ “balk at Muslim immigration bans or moratoriums” are deluded: “The ‘Islam = Peace’ narrative is a naive and cowardly worldview, because the alternative is confronting the reality of a threat that’s almost too scary to fathom.” The very fact that the U.S. lets Muslims hold elected office shows we are falling prey to the “cultural invasion”: “In November 2019, twenty-six Muslim candidates won elected office in the United States. Muhammad is now a top ten boys’ name in America—what will it be in 2030?” (Quotations are from his books American Crusade and The War on Warriors.)

Continue reading on:  Current Affairs

Fadwa Hammoud made history this week when she became the first Muslim Arab American woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hammoud’s appearance was to argue in the case of Brown v. Davenport. The case concerns the 2007 conviction of Ervine Davenport for murder in Michigan. Davenport was shackled for the duration of his trial but, no reason for him being shackled was listed in the court records. His lawyers say his shackling prejudiced the jury against him.

Hammoud’s career has been one of historic firsts. She became the first Arab American Muslim solicitor general in 2019, when Attorney General Dana Nessel appointed Michigan’s 12th solicitor general. She moved to Michigan from Lebanon at age 11, eventually graduating from Fordson High School in Dearborn. The school is also noteworthy for being a public school with a majority-Muslim population. A 2011 NPR report noted that 90% of the school’s population was Muslim.

Source: Religion News

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that U.S. adults overwhelmingly say houses of worship should be required to follow the same rules about social distancing and large gatherings as other organizations or businesses in their local area. About eight-in-ten Americans (79%) take this position, four times the share who think houses of worship should be allowed more flexibility than other kinds of establishments when it comes to rules about social distancing (19%).

On this question, Americans seem to align with two recent Supreme Court orders, which rejected lawsuits claiming that state restrictions on worship violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom. At the same time, many state and local governments have carved out exemptions for religious institutions from pandemic-related restrictions.

Among U.S. Christians, about three-quarters say churches should be subject to the same rules as other businesses. Evangelical Protestants express the most support for giving houses of worship more flexibility, but even in this group, a 62% majority says houses of worship should be held to the same standards as other businesses and organizations (see Chapter 1 for more details). And while Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party are substantially more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say houses of worship should be required to follow the same social distancing rules as other organizations, a two-thirds majority of Republicans also express this view.

In addition, amid reports that some clusters of the virus have been tied to religious gatherings, many Americans who regularly attend religious services express support for instituting a variety of restrictions and modifications at their own places of worship. At the time the survey was conducted (July 13 to 19), only 13% said their house of worship should be open to the public just as it was before the outbreak

More than eight-in-ten attenders think their own congregation should either be closed altogether (28%) or open only on a modified basis (57%), with this latter group broadly endorsing precautions such as requiring people to stay 6 feet away from each other (51%), requiring masks (44%), limiting the number of people in attendance at any one time (41%) and limiting communal singing (29%).

Source: Pew Research Center

The Legislature created the tax credit in 2015 for contributions made to certain scholarship programs for private education. The state’s highest court had struck down the tax credit as a violation of the Montana constitution’s ban on state aid to religious schools. The scholarships can be used at both secular and religious schools, but almost all the recipients attend religious schools.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion that said the state ruling violates the religious freedom of parents who want the scholarships to help pay for their children’s private education. “A state need not subsidize private education. But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious,” Roberts wrote. Parents whose children attend religious schools sued to preserve the program.

Roughly three-dozen states have similar no-aid provisions in their constitutions. Courts in some states have relied on those provisions to strike down religious-school funding.

Advocates for allowing state money to be used in private schooling said the court recognized in its decision that parents should not be penalized for sending their children to schools that are a better fit than the public schools.

Source: Religion News

Now Donald Trump — a man who has repeatedly cast doubt on the patriotism of Muslims — is the president-elect, and he has selected a national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who has called Islam a “cancer.” And a deep unease has again seeped into the daily life of many here in this Muslim community of about 1,500. There has been a smattering of post-election harassment and insults — at schools, in parking lots, on the road — but nothing to take to the police or put Murfreesboro back in the national headlines.

Murfreesboro is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country and an increasingly diverse one. Muslim and Christian students go to school and play sports together; their families patronize the same restaurants and stores. Residents variously describe the town as a proud example of Southern hospitality, a growing “melting pot,” a suburb of “little blue dot” Nashville and the “buckle on the Bible Belt.” Its downtown with the old courthouse and Confederate-soldiers memorial yields to strip malls and chain stores, new housing developments and old cotton fields, and the university, with its 20,000 undergraduates.

Among the town’s couple hundred places of worship are 59 Baptist churches, including an Arabic Baptist church as well as Grace Baptist, whose deacon in 2010 greeted the construction of the new mosque next door by erecting 23 huge white crosses on the road. There are people such as Abdou Kattih, a pharmacist at Walgreens and one of the mosque’s founders, and Jason Bennett, an evangelical advocate for the homeless and a onetime mosque opponent; the two now consider each other close friends…The day after the election, flowers were left on the mosque’s doorstep, and a stranger approached the new imam, an Egyptian, at the Walmart and welcomed him to town.

“Right now, we’re hoping that it’s going to be calm,” said Saleh Sbenaty, an engineering professor at Middle Tennessee State University and one of the founders of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. “But we don’t know if it’s the calm before the storm or the calm after the storm.”

Continue reading at: The Washington Post