An anti-Muslim speaking circuit.
AB Wire
Broad anti-Muslim themes through a range of speakers mixed with fears about immigration and the cost of helping refugees is increasingly finding a receptive audience, especially in places where new immigrants are changing the face of the community, in rural Minnesota.
St. Cloud car salesman and anti-immigration activist Ron Branstner said in a recent speech in Minnesota that the United Nations sends Muslim refugees to the United States and to such cities as St. Cloud, “to divide and conquer, get rid of our Constitution, get rid of our way of life and implement it with another way of life called. …”
The crowd of 100 hollered back: “sharia law!”
From Mankato to Mountain Iron, speakers such as Usama Dakdok, A.J. Kern, Brigitte Gabriel, Cynthia Khan, Jeffrey Baumann and Clare Lopez are showing up in churches, restaurants, VFWs and community centers to address crowds and air concerns about immigrants, the Qur’an and what they see as a threat to the U.S. Constitution, reported the Tribune News Service in SC Times.
Some speakers portray Muslims as practicing a hateful religion, some say Muslims are practically duty-bound to destroy Christians. Others maintain that Muslims are working to someday take control of the United States.
The speeches, which sometimes draw several hundred people, often blend verses pulled from the Qur’an and items plucked from the news to paint an alarming image of Islam, a religion practiced by some 3.3 million Americans, about 1 percent of the population, said the report.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other groups see the message as dangerous hate speech that riles up audiences with depictions of a Christian America under threat.
In December, a few weeks after Dakdok spoke in Grand Forks, a Somali restaurant in the city was firebombed. A Minnesota man has since been charged in the attack.
“A lot of these fears are coming from that type of general fear of the ‘other,’ and not real knowledge of Islam,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR.
Anti-Muslim sentiment has risen dramatically nationwide in the past year, sparking protests and anti-refugee legislation in Idaho, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas and elsewhere, said Stephen Piggott of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit focused on civil rights, the Tribune report said.
In Minnesota, a state senator introduced a bill purporting to protect the U.S. Constitution from sharia, but legal experts said it’s completely unnecessary because the threat as depicted by the senator doesn’t exist.