THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 54, February 25, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
ISLAMIST RECOMMENDATIONS OR MANDATES?
By R. John Matthies
THE POSITION OF ISLAM IN THE U.S.A.: THE ISLAMISTS' DEMAND FOR SPECIAL TREATMENT OF & SPECIAL
PRIVILEGES FOR AMERICAN MUSLIMS -- MAKING DEMANDS THAT IGNORE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF AMERICAN
GOVERNANCE, SUCH AS CONSTITUTIONALISM, REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY, SEPARATION OF POWERS, CHECKS &
BALANCES, FEDERALISM, INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY, EQUALITY UNDER THE LAW, & SEPARATION OF THE SPHERES OF
GOVERNMENT & RELIGION -- THE GOALS OF SUCH DEMANDS: SMASHING THE BEDROCK FOUNDATION OF CIVIL
SOCIETY, DESTROYING THE RULE OF LAW, BREACHING THE AMERICAN SOCIAL CONTRACT, FREEZING THE AMERICAN
MELTING POT, & PROMOTING ISLAMIC SEGREGATION, EXCEPTIONALISM, & SEPARATISM WITHIN THE PRESENT BORDERS
OF THE U.S.A.
FULL STORY:
Not long ago, a list of "unique issues affecting Muslim Americans" was posted at the Muslim Americans for Obama
'08 website. This describes a number of "recommendations" drafted to advance the discussion of lawful Islamism
and exceptional accommodation in the United States. These suggest both that "Islamic" comportment is beyond
reproach, and that one is always correct to press the case for inviolable "Muslim" space.
The "recommendations" described are neither fantastical nor improbable. In fact, if the United States has, by this time,
failed to enact the variety of accommodations embraced by our Western allies, it is clear that, on the ground and across
the United States, private institutions and local governing bodies have taken the lead in obliging Islamist groups. This
is simply to say that the present list of wishes (untouched for spelling and grammar) has become very real for many.
QUESTION: What are issues and recommendations for solutions that are unique to Muslim Americans?
1. A Law against harrassment of Muslim women wearing
Hijab at the Airport, DMV and other public arenas.
2. Institute a Law to allow Muslim Employees to take a
hours off from work for Friday Jummah [congregational]
Prayer.
3. Make the 2 Eid's [holidays to mark the end of Ramadan
and the Festival of Sacrifice], recognized National
Holidays on Calendars with days off from work.
4. Optional Halal meals in federal buildiings, public schools,
and colleges.
5. Provide prayer areas suitable for Salah [ritual prayer] and
Jummah, in public and private facilities. (i.e. Malls,
Airports, Universities, and government buildings.)
6. Organize a Muslim American group to assist in
recommendations for US foreign policy affecting majority
Muslim countries.
Consider the first example, which concerns hijabs (headscarves) at the DMV. The Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR) has long been active on this front, and, in 2004, produced a document titled Religious Accommodation in Driver's
License Photographs. Here, one reads that: "South Carolina, Michigan, and West Virginia allow veiled women privacy in
taking a full-faced picture; Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Indiana allow veiled women a no-photo driver's license; […] and
that Nevada allows photos with ‘drastic alteration of appearance.'"
CAIR has also celebrated several victories recently: first in San Diego, California, where a sheriff's department employee
was allowed to re-shoot her identification card to include hijab; and, in the states of New York and Ohio, which now allow
for partially obscured driver's license photographs.
The second recommendation has become a reality for many. In Nebraska last year, for example, Swift & Co. agreed to
"tweak" break times to accommodate the daily sunset prayer. This was decided to allow dozens of striking workers, who
complained their right to worship freely was denied them, to return to work. And in Pennsylvania, Muslim employees who
quit work at Arnold Logistics, following a "misunderstanding" as to the five minutes' break allocated to employees, are
back on the job, with a 15-minute accommodation for their daily prayers. Dell, Tyson Foods, and Whirlpool claim similar
experience.
The third has not yet become a national priority, although it is not uncommon for observant Muslims to stay home the
Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. And a growing number of schoolchildren (in New Jersey, for example) are
finding they are not required to attend class on Muslim holidays, or that the days are classless altogether. And New York
State Senator John D. Sabini, hoping to deliver Garden State equanimity to his constituents, introduced a bill into the State
Senate that would require the City School District of New York City to recognize the Eid holidays, as it does those for
other faiths.
As for the fourth: Halal meals, you say? These are available at a number of American colleges and universities, including,
claims the Halal Digest, Harvard University, Syracuse University, University of Connecticut, Cornell University,
Boston University, and Dartmouth College. But one is most likely to discover halal optional in federal prison, where access
to these and kosher platters is required. Add to this that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in January, 2008, that
prison officials in Arizona must demonstrate "real hardship" before they can deny halal meals to Muslim inmates.
Fifth: Prayer areas suggested or retained for exclusive Muslim use at the airport, at university, or at the hospital have
become more common. But, as for a federal mandate requiring prayer facilities at retail outlets like the Mall of America, for
example, and across the private sector, it appears one will (for the moment, anyway) have to do with ecumenical or
shared-use facilities.
Sixth, and finally: where it's a question of Muslims advising foreign policy decisions, one only has to consider the
appointment of a U.S. "special envoy" to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The individual, who has yet to
be named, will be tasked to "maintain formal contact with the OIC Secretariat, the Secretary General, the chairing country,
plus other member countries, to follow OIC affairs and activities, understand the views of OIC members and leaders, seek
ways for the U.S.A. and the OIC to cooperate, and seek to promote U.S. views on important policy matters that may come
before the OIC." This represents a first-ever appointment to the body on the part of the United States government.
But domestic matters also press: Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum recently agreed to establish a Muslim community
advisory group, tasked to offer educational programs on Islam and Muslims to Justice staff. The decision, which the
Attorney General reached after consulting with members of CAIR, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the ACLU
of Florida and the Florida Muslim Bar Association, appears a means to make good for allegedly directing staffers to view
"Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West."
The examples supplied above are by no means the only of their kind. These represent a sampling – limited to the United
States, for obvious reasons – from among those making news most recently. The fact is that the issues associated with
lawful Islamism and outsized accommodation are well more advanced in Western Europe (in Great Britain, notably) and in
Canada than they are in the United States.
But it's clear that accommodation does not, in every case, portend disaster. Private employers are free to change or stagger
break times as they see fit, to accommodate employee worship, provided they do this of their own free will, and that the
change does not disrupt staff and operations. Likewise, in districts where schoolchildren are granted leave for ritual
holidays, it makes no sense to deny the same right to Muslims, provided student enrollment makes this meaningful.
Similarly, one cannot disallow halal meals where one already offers confessional platters, or where demand makes this
reasonable.
On the other hand, to suggest that government allow for partially veiled-user identification cards -- which can only trouble
law enforcement -- impose exclusive-use facilities for Muslim faithful, or commission faith-based advisory boards is to
admit to ignorance of the American constitutional separation of powers, the American democratic tradition, and the idea,
finally, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." One might also allow that a program like
this has for its goal to smash the bedrock foundation of civil society, breach the American social contract, and/or promote
a regime of auto-segregation and exception.
American Muslims enjoy the rights and responsibilities available to every other citizen, as well they should. Muslims are
also invited to conduct their faith in view of the rule of law, as are members of every conviction. One has long invited
Muslims to fold their faith into the American melting pot; for a wish to fashion the existing order into something "Islamic"
is unacceptable to Muslims who eschew Islamist orthodoxy and reject the influence of Saudi-funded lobbies, and
offensive to all who have found a home in the U.S. constitutional regime.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Religion, Secularism, & America:
Religion & American Constiturional Principles
The Fifth Column -- America's Internal Enemies:
Disloyalty, Subversion, Sedition, & Treason
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Contributing Editor of Family Security Matters, R. John Matthies is Assistant Director of Islamist Watch, a project
of the Middle East Forum. He can be reached at Matthies@MEForum.org.
The foregoing article by R. John Matthies was originally published in Family Security Matters, February 25, 2008,
and can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/1860)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
February 25, 2008
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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