On His First Day in Office, Texas State Rep Sends Letters to Mosques, Asks Them to Renounce Sharia #HummusHaters
With all the anti-Arab bashing we see in the news every week, Arab America is determined to expose those who discriminate against our community. We will recognize those who vilify the positive influence and contributions Arabs have made to the fabric of American society. And we will use hummus as our weapon. By naming those who vilify the Arab American community as #HummusHaters, we can express our culture positively while showing intolerance to bigotry.
BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer
Rep. Kyle BiedermannA Texas lawmaker has sent letters to mosques across Texas, asking Muslims to answer questions ahead of the annual Texas Muslim Capitol Day on January 31.
Rep. Kyle Biedermann, a Republican from Fredericksburg best known as the guy who wore a “gay Hitler” Halloween costume signed the letter with two organizations, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and Former Muslims United Inc., both of which claim to fight “Islamic extremism” in the U.S.
The Texas representative sent the letters with the words “URGENT REPLY ASAP” stamped in red on the envelope. The letters request readers to indicate their support for three documents pertaining to Sharia Law.
According to Dallas News, the first document is the “Declaration of Muslim Reform Movement”. It asks the reader to reject “institutionalized Sharia” and declare support for secular, democratic governance.
The second document is a “Muslim Pledge for Religious Freedom and Safety from Harm for Former Muslims”. It asks the reader to renounce persecution of former Muslims who left the religion.
The third is a copy of federal legislation that labels the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
Naturally, the letters did not sit well with members of Texas’ Muslim community. Islamic leaders saw it as a way to intimidate Muslims so that they won’t rally at the Texas State Capitol this year to speak with lawmakers, as they have every year since 2003.
Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said “all of this foolishness they’re doing, they could spend their time better getting to know us, [but] they don’t have the courage to do that.”
Texas Muslim Capitol Day, 2016.Rep. Biedermann sent the letters out on January 11, only a day after he was sworn into office. It ordered the mosques to reply by January 20, but as of Thursday, none have responded. In the letter, Biedermann said it was regarding Texas Muslim Capitol Day, but backtracked in a later email, stating that it was regarding a Homeland Security Summit he is hosting.
The letter and its contents came as no surprise to the proud Muslims of Texas, who have seen religious bigotry from their state representatives a few times before. However, it seems Rep. Biedermann has yet to realize that attacking the American Muslim community is career suicide for state reps. The last rep to do it – Molly White, a Republican from Belton, who placed an Israeli flag on her desk and instructed her staff to insult Muslims who visited her on Capitol Day – lost her re-election.
Perhaps the priority of Rep. Biedermann on his first day in office should have been to find a tasty hummus joint nearby so he could learn about Middle Eastern contributions to the U.S. That way, he could’ve avoided writing his ridiculous, Islamophobic letters and gotten to work helping to protect his Muslim constituents – not insult them.
