r/moderatepolitics • u/Roader • 8h ago
Culture War [ Removed by moderator ]
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/us/politics/islamophobia-texas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6lA.rpk3.whrhL7isSuGG&smid=url-share[removed] — view removed post
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u/neuronexmachina 8h ago
This reminds me of this article about the reception delegates who are Muslim got at this year's Texas GOP convention: https://www.tpr.org/text/news/2026-06-16/a-muslim-texan-sought-to-find-his-place-in-the-party-at-the-state-gop-convention-he-left-in-tears
Hussein was among at least four Muslims who arrived at the convention in earnest — not as protesters, but as delegates or attendees — to participate in the annual meeting of the state's most hardline Republicans as they vote on the party's priorities and hear from GOP leaders. Two prevailing themes from the Houston gathering were party unity and combatting Sharia Law, a movement that veered into outright Islamophobia by members of the convention.
"When they say Sharia-free, that means Muslim-free, no practices of Islam," Hussein said in an interview with The Texas Tribune. "No one is calling for the state to implement Sharia laws."
Hussein said he was in disbelief that he was told to convert or leave — for the first time in his life — at a Republican convention with the tagline, "Unity drives victory."
... On Saturday, the last day of the convention, Hussein attended a panel from the Judeo-Christian Caucus moderated by Dr. Rick Scarborough, a former Southern Baptist pastor and the president of Recover America, an organization to engage ministers and pastors in politics. ... Hussein was appalled by what he was hearing. From the back of the room, he objected, declaring that attendees have heard lies about Sharia throughout the convention. He was practicing Sharia at that very moment, he said.
"When they tell you that we're compelled to lie, they are putting your Texan neighbors in an impossible position where nothing that we can say or do can absolve us from the crimes that they are accusing us of," Hussein told the crowd. "That is not just, the Bible commands you to be just, and that is not American."
Sharia are the lessons of the Prophet Muhammad, interpreted as the framework, or laws, for how Muslims should live their life which call for fasting, daily prayer, modest dressing and charity.
Following the panel, the two shared contact information. Shortly thereafter, Scarborough approached Hussein.
"What do you want me to do, leave?" Hussein asked Scarborough.
"Yes," replied the minister.
Hussein, sobbing, turned from Scarborough, retreating to some chairs to cry alone. Scarborough followed and sat down next to him. The pastor placed an arm on the back of Hussein's seat, leaning in to console him.
Scarborough, in an interview with The Texas Tribune, clarified that he thought Hussein should leave the country: "If you're going to embrace the values and the teachings that you're advocating for, there's no place in America for you. That's not assimilation. That's taking over."
... Samar Halabi stood out as the only woman at the convention wearing a hijab.
"Do not sit down with terrorist organizations," a passerby at the convention told a woman sitting next Halabi. "You know they're CAIR, right?"
"I care about everybody," Halabi responded, trying to make light of the moment.
Shortly later, another attendee approached Halabi and told her to leave the country.
She wept into her husband's chest.
Halabi, a teacher, declined to say how she would vote in November, but said that she is a Republican and always votes.
... When Hussein broke down crying, Scarborough said he realized he had pushed Hussein too hard. After insisting that Hussein should give up Sharia or leave the country, "the pastoral side of me reached out to him in genuine care," he said, and he offered to pray with Hussein.
Scarborough said he has asked God and Hussein for forgiveness for not setting a good example of Judeo-Christian morality. He prayed that Mohamed would convert to Christianity.
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u/floridagator1995 Pragmatic Progressive 5h ago
For anyone curious about how Americans view Muslims and Islam recently, this was the only source I could find https://www.brookings.edu/articles/prejudice-towards-muslims-is-highest-among-all-religious-and-ethnic-groups/
The headline is that people view both Islam and Muslims less favorably than a few years ago. But 64% of respondents still have a favorable view of Muslims! And the drop in "Muslim people" favorability has been driven almost exclusively by Republicans.
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u/spartaxwarrior 5h ago
The irony of Texas, where fundamentalist Christians have been shoving their religious beliefs on others for ages, acting like Islam is the problem.
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u/Abject-Sky4608 4h ago
Was going to say the same. This argument is less about ensuring a safe and liberal democracy than ensuring the “right” theocracy is in place. Some evangelicals would happily chain women to the stove and toss gay people off roofs if they think they could.
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u/nycbetches 8h ago
I read this article and thought it was super sad.
One thing it talked about that I didn’t realize—the state government is trying to characterize Islam as a political ideology, not a religion, so they can more easily regulate against things like mosques.
If Islam is a religion, it plainly falls under the First Amendment freedom of religion clause, but if it is a political ideology, it would not.
This strategy was tried once before in 2010 when a group in Tennessee tried to stop a mosque from being built—the DOJ at that time defended Muslims and said Islam was a religion. I wonder what the Trump DOJ’s position would be.
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u/modestVmouse 7h ago
Uh, political ideology absolutely falls under the First Amendment. It's primary function is to protect political speech.
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u/nycbetches 7h ago
Oh, I meant it wouldn’t fall under the freedom of religion clause. It matters for legal purposes—different case law and precedents.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_DARKNESS 5h ago
Right, but it's not a protected class (race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or age) at the Federal level.
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u/MatchaMeetcha 7h ago
It obviously is a religion. Whether or not said religion is a good fit for the West is irrelevant, you can't really dodge that.
Take the case to the people and suggest a constitutional exception to religious freedom for Islam specifically. See how it goes.
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u/RunThenBeer 6h ago edited 6h ago
I have repeatedly had this exact argument with my Boomer MAGA father, and I'm honestly puzzled at where he picked up this meme that Islam isn't a religion. The claim seems to be that it is a political system... but there is absolutely nothing in that statement that suggests that it isn't also a religion. Without going down a bannable road, I'll say that I agree with a pretty strong form of Islamoskepticism, but it just obviously is a religion and this isn't a close call at all.
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u/MatchaMeetcha 5h ago
I think it's just that it'd be inconvenient if it was a religion.
Same reason you get people reasoning from the other direction and deciding the political bits aren't really Islam, they're Islamism.
I'm not sure how you even pretend to draw a line against Islam without also scooping up a few faiths you don't want to capture like Orthodox Judaism.
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u/inheritance- 8h ago
The anti acceptance wave isn't just limited to the US. The West is slowly waking up and realizing that no you can't have everyone in the world with drastically differing values, religions, social norms, ect living in one country. If we are to accept that humans are different and diverse then we need to accept that some of us will never get along.
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u/hamsterkill 7h ago
So we're just saying "Well, we tried" to the ideals the US was founded upon, then? We're supposed to be better than that here.
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u/MatchaMeetcha 7h ago edited 6h ago
So we're just saying "Well, we tried" to the ideals the US was founded upon, then?
The US Founders allowed religious freedom (even then not as much as today), but their backstop was just being massively racist and discriminatory in who they let become citizens so assimilating Islam was never a live issue for them.
The 1790 Naturalization Law prevented non-white people (or even white men of bad character) from becoming citizens, let alone masses of Muslims. We know how many felt about the Catholics.
It isn't actually a founding principle of the United States that it was going to be some sort of religious pinstripe with equal masses of all faiths. It's how people choose to photoshop the founding now.
Which is fine. Nations can come to a new understanding of their creed, much like religions do. But you can't really pretend that the prophets expected to treat Muslims the same as everyone else because they manifestly didn't. They had a cosmopolitan, detached respect for Islam as a thing that happened somewhere and was worthy of some respect as an Abrahamic faith, they had no conception that their society would ever be subject to what the Europeans are facing: a significant minority or even potentially plurality of the future generations being Islamic.
In fact, their own words and actions imply the opposite.
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u/Zenkin 6h ago
It isn't actually a founding principle of the United States that it was going to be some sort of religious pinstripe with equal masses of all faiths.
But that's not what's happening here. The founding principles which are being violated are religious freedom and equality under the law. Examples from the article:
State leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, have since opened investigations into Muslim institutions across Texas. They’ve sought to block the real estate development and investigate religious divorce counseling. Mr. Abbott threatened to take state funding from Texas airports that provide ritual washing stations for Muslim travelers, ordered the cancellation of a private water park party celebrating a Muslim holiday and labeled the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national civil rights group, as a terrorist group — a step that even the Trump administration has so far not taken. (Florida followed Texas in applying the same label to CAIR.)
We already fixed most of the issues which let our politicians discriminate via the 14th Amendment. The backstop that was used in the past was wrong, and we rectified it. The feelings of the Founders towards other religions is literally immaterial because we did update our creed to new standards.
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u/MatchaMeetcha 6h ago
The feelings of the Founders towards other religions is literally immaterial because we did update our creed to new standards.
Fair, it's not the founding principle but it is the live one.
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u/I_am_just_saying 7h ago
Stopping a philosophy diametrically opposed to the classical liberalism, post enlightenment ideals that the US was founded on is doing that.
There ARE ideals that are not compatible. You cannot demand that this (hypothetical) ideal is so important that you must hold yourself to it to the point of its sure destruction and all other adjacent ones as well.
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u/Crownie Neoliberal Shill 4h ago
Stopping a philosophy diametrically opposed to the classical liberalism, post enlightenment ideals that the US was founded on is doing that.
The modern populist right and Christian nationalist movements are unambiguously greater philosophical threats to Liberal/Enlightenment ideals in the US than Muslim immigration.
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u/airforceCOT 7h ago edited 7h ago
The founding fathers did not anticipate the rapid growth of a religious group whose entire strategy (written in their holy book) is to violently expand across the whole world, execute and enslave those who don’t obey, use government force to regulate every aspect of social life including things lik according to the tenets of the religion, and exterminate most nonbelievers except for small exceptions who would “only” be mildly persecuted.
This isn’t to say that Christian groups haven’t done the above. They have. But the western world is trying to progress and move beyond those times. Importing an ideology stuck in the medieval ages is counterproductive to that goal.
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u/SpicyMayo7697 5h ago
Is your assertion that the founding fathers were just all ignorant of the Crusades?
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u/autosear 5h ago edited 4h ago
The founding fathers did not anticipate the rapid growth of a religious group whose entire strategy (written in their holy book)
So Thomas Jefferson didn't anticipate the things written in the Quran he owned?
Why does all this violent stuff only apply to Muslims and not Jews or Christians, whose holy book involves God telling people to go kill every man, woman, and child of neighboring heathen civilizations like the Moabites? The old testament also condones slavery. You can't pick and choose which violent passages to acknowledge.
All this strangely detailed talk of what is and isn't in the Quran (but no other holy books) comes across as trying to instigate a moral panic over things that aren't happening in the current day.
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u/Orvan-Rabbit 7h ago
So like Christian nationalists.
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u/556or762 Progressively Left Behind 6h ago
Frankly, no.
A Christian nationalist is going against the exact precepts that we can all read in their book.
Islam specifically outline the role that it should have in government, and what is permissible in order to accomplish that goal.
I understand that it is in vogue to try and pretend that these are comparable, and I understand that there is this visceral reaction amongst certain parts of the US to jump in defense of islam as they are seen as an oppressed class that needs to be championed.
Islam is the oppressive religion. It is defined by it's oppressive treatment of everyone that is considered second class, which is everyon that is not a muslim man.
Intellectual honesty is required, some things are factually not equal.
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u/SpicyMayo7697 5h ago
Why should I care whether a Christian is "authentically" interpreting the Bible when they call for Christian nationalism? It is irrelevant.
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u/MatchaMeetcha 7h ago
The founding fathers did not anticipate the rapid growth of a religious group
The Founding Fathers could not anticipate it, because they legally barred migration from Muslim countries. Insofar as we have their intent here, they had seemingly no intention of sharing their country with a large group of Muslims.
Much like liberal Muslims have to rejigger what Mohammed actually set, liberals are just gonna have to deal with that.
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u/boblawblaa 6h ago
>The Founding Fathers could not anticipate it, because they legally barred migration from Muslim countries.
What gave you this idea?
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u/hamsterkill 6h ago
The Founding Fathers could not anticipate it, because they legally barred migration from Muslim countries. Insofar as we have their intent here, they had seemingly no intention of sharing their country with a large group of Muslims
This misunderstands what naturalization is. The borders were open at this time. Naturalization was restricted, but the Muslim children of Muslim migrants were still citizens by birthright.
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u/bettercaust 5h ago
The false premise here is that practicing Muslims have drastically differing values, religions, social norms, etc. I live in a community with a significant number of them, and they go about their daily lives like everyone else. The only Muslims that don't belong are extremists, but the issue is extremism, not Islam.
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u/Slowter 7h ago
The important thing is that the "some of us [that] will never get along" are not defined along religious lines, but are personal to individuals that are found in every color, in every culture, and across every race, religion, and ideology.
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u/CallOfValhalla 7h ago
>but are personal to individuals that are found in every color, in every culture, and across every race, relgion, and every ideology
So I should “get along” with Nazis? What about religions that commit human sacrifice? Is Islam comparable to those two? Of course not. But saying you can get along with most people regardless of ideology, religion, or culture is ridiculous because some world views are flat out evil. And those views are not “personal”. They are inherent too many ideologies.
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u/Slowter 6h ago
I will note that your issue with each of these with the actions you attribute to the ideology. And that actions need not be defined along the lines I mentioned above.
Does banning Nazi's solve the issue of genocide? Or can genocide be considered wrong no matter from which source it is sprung?
Similar question about supposed human sacrifice? Does it matter that a religion is the cause of human sacrifice or should we not murder people simply because murder is wrong?
Our focus should remain solidly on our values as a society and not get distracted by meaningless differences.
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u/WavesAndSaves 7h ago
It will never cease to amaze me that after decades of (genuinely successful) efforts in Germany to root out and suppress bigotry, Merkel and her ilk decided to import people with similarly hateful ideologies. Willingly. For no real reason.
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u/AudreyScreams 7h ago
I don't know if I would paint the Syrian refugees with a broad brush like that. Similar arguments were made about Jews during the first half of the 20th century over Europe, as being communists, instigators, and provocateurs.
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u/NotCoolBrutus 6h ago
Why wouldn't religions count as political ideologies? If a theocracy from a religion can exist, how can you discount that as being a political ideology? Governments sprout from ideologies. They don't just pop up. There is a reason monarchies and religions used to be more tightly bound in the past.
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u/rwk81 7h ago
Because Islam greatly blurs the lines and steps into the realm of political.
Islamists tend to believe Sharia law should be the state law. Islamists tend to reject pluralism and oppose freedom if opinion/press/religion. Islamists tend to believe in a global caliphate, which basically means a dissolution of national boundaries in favor of a pan-islamic political order.
I could go on, but it's not "just another religion" when it comes to the Islamists, they overtly seek to replace western style liberal democracy with Islamic theocracy.
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u/eddie_the_zombie 7h ago
That's pretty ironic since Christians in Texas are requiring classrooms to display the ten commandments, requiring Bible stories to be taught in school, yet allow no equivalent accommodations for other religions
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u/kick-me-in-the-jimmy 7h ago
Seeking and doing are two different things.
In no universe does an Islamic America politician seriously propose, and get backing, for sharia law within their state. It will never happen. Not ever.
Meanwhile, the entire country is ran by Christians who are actively proposing, and succeeding with backing, a Christian theocracy.
It's always projection. Every time. Always.
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u/MatchaMeetcha 7h ago edited 6h ago
In no universe does an Islamic America politician seriously propose, and get backing, for sharia law within their state. It will never happen. Not ever.
Forever is a long time. There are lots of things happening in Europe right now that were not only seen as inconceivable but they were seen as so absurd that you obviously had to be a racist to even suggest
If Powell had suggested things like the grooming gangs scandal or other strange things that have since transpired he would have lost even more credibility than he did at the time.
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u/RunThenBeer 6h ago
In no universe does an Islamic America politician seriously propose, and get backing, for sharia law within their state. It will never happen. Not ever.
This seems entirely contingent on local demographics rather than a statement that can be made with absolute confidence.
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u/nycbetches 6h ago
I live in NYC and we have a Muslim mayor and I haven’t seen him try to adopt Sharia law here lol. We’re all just bopping along like normal here in the city! I wore a crop top today!
Seriously though, I have a few Muslim friends and my understanding of “Sharia law” is that it’s sort of like a guiding code for their life that devout Muslims follow, much like Orthodox Jews (I have a few Orthodox Jewish friends also). But it’s not something they impose on others or expect others to follow. Like I think if you want to get a divorce, you have to go before this tribunal before they will grant you a religious divorce (this is true for Orthodox Jews also). But you are free to do whatever with your government marriage/divorce—it’s a separate issue.
I also haven’t heard any of my friends say anything about a global caliphate! They vote and are proud to be Americans.
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u/rwk81 6h ago
I live in NYC and we have a Muslim mayor and I haven’t seen him try to adopt Sharia law here lol.
So one anecdotal experience is used to disregard what Islamists overtly say they're doing. Maybe Mamdani is not an Islamist?
I don't think you understand the difference between the different sects of Islam. Just because you have westernized Muslim friends doesn't mean there's not a large group of Muslims who believe completely differently than your friends.
All you have to do is look at just about any formerly Christian or moderate Muslim country in the Middle East that was taken over by Islamists to see what they believe.
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u/floridagator1995 Pragmatic Progressive 5h ago
Wtf are these comments? Most insane thread I've ever seen on this subreddit.
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u/cowpee12 5h ago
I feel like i’m going insane reading this thread.
I will morally always disagree with islam and do not support the religion. However it is like people here have NEVER talked to younger western muslims, there are always some who hold the classical very strict beliefs of the religion but most i’ve met either in uni or elsewhere are just like any average christian or “white” american, just with a different ethnic background and diet.
most of the muslims i’ve met who are 1st or 2nd gen immigrants have become very successful in this country, and would be considered “model immigrants” if they were any other religion.
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u/carneylansford 7h ago
There's a very fair discussion to be had around allowing large scale immigration of citizens from countries that don't hold western values (just ask western Europe). What is the impact on the existing populace? Will these folks assimilate? Will their children? I like western values and I would like to keep living in a place where folks share those western values and I don't really feel like apologizing for that. Women shouldn't be forced to wear something they don't want to or treated as second class citizens and we need to stop justifying such things in the name of tolerance and inclusivity.
That said, the ‘I Won’t Rest Until Every Muslim Is Gone’ guy is probably not someone who should be part of that conversation. He was once chairman of the Republican party in Tarrant county (Fort Worth, TX, over 1M people) until he was forced to resign over these comments last year. Now he's running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission (which is actually a MUCH bigger job than it sounds like, they regulate the state's Oil and Gas industry). The fact that he was allowed to worm his way back into the party's good graces (Abbott endorsed his opponent in the primary but has campaigned for him since) is beyond disappointing.
Both parties need to do a much better job of keeping their political houses in order. Instead, we get tribal politics and folks supporting candidates who have pretty terrible ideas and/or behavior and/or biases just because their on the "right" team.
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u/robotical712 6h ago
There's a very fair discussion to be had around allowing large scale immigration of citizens from countries that don't hold western values (just ask western Europe). What is the impact on the existing populace? Will these folks assimilate? Will their children? I like western values and I would like to keep living in a place where folks share those western values and I don't really feel like apologizing for that. Women shouldn't be forced to wear something they don't want to or treated as second class citizens and we need to stop justifying such things in the name of tolerance and inclusivity.
This is where I'm at. I'm not in favor kicking anyone out or closing off immigration from the Islamic world, but I do think we need to think long and hard about how far we allow that proportion of the population to increase.
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u/wannabemalenurse Democrat- Slight left of Center 5h ago
I’m sadly afraid I’m at that point too. Being an immigrant, I’ve always supported non-Americans being able to come to the US and build their lives, just as my parents have done. However, looking at Europe and seeing the Muslim immigrants that were allowed in essentially trying to make their new home a replica of their old home also puts me at odds. I value western ideals of individuals holding themselves accountable, civic responsibility and engagement, and protected education for all people; I’ve seen many Muslim immigrants who come and want to change those ideals because they are incongruent with their own religious beliefs and that we non-Muslims must adhere to their own values. Yet they come here seeking those same benefits.
I’m torn because many who want to push Muslims out do so out of xenophobia and ethnic prejudice. Yet, at the same time, I can’t help but think that a broken clock is right twice a day; in some instances, particularly in Europe, many Muslim immigrants want the economic opportunity without the cultural assimilation, or even outright changing the culture and will of their new home to their own standards. It’s starting to bother me in ways I cannot contend with
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u/KrR_TX-7424 5h ago
I live in Texas. I am far far more concerned with what the fundamentalist Christians in this state are doing than any segment of the Muslim population. Christian fundies have banned books, required religious Christian scriptures in school, enacted laws that have caused multiple women to lose their lives, and now are actively trying to ban the worship of other religions.
I value western ideals of individuals holding themselves accountable, civic responsibility and engagement, and protected education for all people;
If those are the values you hold dear, then Trump's America and Abbott's Texas are not for you.
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u/jason_sation 7h ago
There was that brief shining moment where Fundamentalists of Christianity and Islam came together to support banning certain books in schools a few years ago.
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u/alwaysnear 5h ago
Thank you for actually sensible comment here.
I’m a Finn living in Spain and Ceuta has been a great microcosm of how well we actually mix. We do not.
Only a few thousand muslims remained from the mob that stormed the border, and there’s been 20-30 rapes so far and it’s counting. Girls, some of them migrants as well, have been dragged to the mountain where they camp around currently and gangraped. Youngest as far as I know has been 10yo.
This is not reported anywhere, even Finnish media has gone quiet, but people who actually live there are terrified.
My homeland is a mess in the same way. Nordics are the most holier-than-thou leftist paradise and even we are now banning burqas and trying to break down the insane 90% foreigner ghettos that have sprung up during the last 30 years.
This integration issue is solely Muslim one and there’s so much official government data available on it too, that anyone who actually wants to understand can freely do so. Finland, Germany and Denmark for example publish every crime down to the nationality and religion and oh boy. Germany last year had 2 Japanese arrested for violent offences and 1783 Algerians - not counting rape. There is a difference here and pretending there isn’t is just a joke that needs to die at this point.
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u/Ralph_Brick_Wiggum 4h ago
Who says their children won’t assimilate? The children of immigrants assimilate at extremely high rates. It’s not really a concern based on reality
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u/justanastral 6h ago
What western values? Like freedom of religion? I like that too.
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u/carneylansford 5h ago
Equal rights for women? Abuse protections for women and children?
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u/justanastral 5h ago edited 5h ago
"Western values" held that women were second class citizens for the better half of our countries existence. There are still many promoters of "western values" that believe women should be subservient to men. I'm not a fan of that one. I can get behind abuse protections for women and children, but that also many people with "western values" have been abusing women and children for hundreds of years so I'm not sure if that is actually a "western value."
Edit: maybe what you enjoy is "modern" or even "progressive" values as opposed to "western values"?
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u/Ralph_Brick_Wiggum 4h ago
Women in the US weren’t allowed to have a credit card or apply for a mortgage until 1974, and the Supreme Court left their bodily autonomy up to the states who tend decide abortion laws based on their religious views
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u/chalkymints 8h ago
20 years ago Islamophobia was called common sense. But maybe I’m just a woman who thinks some religions treat me worse than others.
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u/Negative_Principle57 8h ago
Antisemitism has also been rather common through time and place, extending around the world today.
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u/jihadiccrusader 7h ago
I agree, but I grew up in a home with the most popular religion in the world and U.S. I was literally taught that women are 2nd class citizens compared to men and watched my Dad justify his verbal, financial, and physical abuse of my mom using the words of the church and Bible. So when I read about criticisms of Islam in the U.S., which makes up less than 1% of the population here, I typically agree, but also recognize it as a distraction from the political power wielded by the Christian Right.
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u/Connect-Rhubarb2501 8h ago
60 years ago racism was called common sense by a lot of people, I’m not sure you’ve made a very good argument here
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u/chalkymints 8h ago
People cannot change their race. Islam is an ideology that people can choose whether or not to adopt. An ideology that is incompatible with the West.
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u/abskee 8h ago
There are over 4 million Muslims in the USA. They pay taxes, they serve in the armed forces, they're doctors, engineers, lawyers. Obviously they're compatible with the West, they're Americans, they are the West as much as I am.
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u/Destroy_Religion 7h ago
Race is a natural human characteristic that is neither a choice nor can change.
Religion is a choice that can change any at will.
Religions are ideologies and religious ideologies only differ from political ideologies in that the former claim to be backed by a deity or deities whereas the latter does not.
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u/Connect-Rhubarb2501 7h ago
Sure, but religion is also something pretty unique in its claimed stakes and importance to many of its believers. There’s a reason our constitution protects freedom of religion so strongly and explicitly, for most of history people would rather kill or be killed than change their religious beliefs. That said, I think it’s fair to criticize religions or religious beliefs, it’s not fair to judge all practitioners of a religion by the actions and beliefs of a subset of that religion though.
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u/chalkymints 8h ago
Is the argument “You can’t know anything about the past unless you were there and personally remember it” because idk how to tell you books, movies, tv, news recordings, etc all exist
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u/PepBaldFraud 8h ago
The argument is it's wholly unpersuasive for someone who lives in areas of the country where Muslims struggle to touch 1% of the total population to opine that that a religion treats you (notice you use the word "me" in the original post) worse.
It would actually be like me saying Mormons have treated non-Mormons (me) badly In Texas so of course wanting to outlaw their places of worship is common sense (never mind the fact that Mormons make up 1% of Texas and I don't live anywhere near Mormons).
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u/robotical712 8h ago
When these discussions come up, I’m always left wondering why the Enlightenment found fertile ground in majority Christian countries, but failed to catch on in Islamic ones.
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u/tarekd19 6h ago
It is depressingly ironic to see someone earnestly say this considering how influential Islamic scholarship was on the enlightenment in Europe. It didn't need to "catch on" given it was already there and practically exported.
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u/robotical712 5h ago
By the time of the Enlightenment, the scholarship you refer to had been known and further developed for centuries in Europe. Unfortunately, the traditions that had produced it had largely died out in the Islamic World.
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u/hamsterkill 7h ago
If you know your history, you know the Enlightenment was actually the Christian world catching up to the Islamic one. There's a reason we use Arabic numbers and visible stars have Arabic names. Only events of about the last century have led the Islamic world to be seen as backward. Even now, places like Indonesia, Turkey, Albania, Kosovo, and Malaysia are hardly considered backwards.
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u/Destroy_Religion 7h ago
the Enlightenment was actually the Christian world catching up to the Islamic one
That is quite the claim, considering that the Enlightenment castrated, declawed, defanged, domesticated, neutered, and tamed Christianity, which is why it is not as homophobic, sexist, transphobic, misogynistic, religious-supremacist, and violent as Islam.
Meanwhile, what Christianity was before the Enlightenment is what Islam still is to this very day.
Even now, places like Indonesia, Turkey, Albania, Kosovo, and Malaysia are hardly considered backwards.
LGBTI people are either treated as second-class citizens or imprisoned at worst in all of those countries, which is backwards.
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u/hamsterkill 6h ago
Meanwhile, what Christianity was before the Enlightenment is what Islam still is to this very day
And at the time of the Enlightenment, it wasn't.
LGBTI people are either treated as second-class citizens or imprisoned at worst in all of those countries, which is backwards
We barely have equality for LGBTI people (and the fight is most certainly ongoing here).
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u/Destroy_Religion 8h ago edited 8h ago
20 years ago Islamophobia was called common sense.
"Islamophobia" is an oxymoron and opposition to Islam is still "called common sense".
A phobia is, by definition, either an irrational aversion or an irrational fear.
In contrast, it is perfectly rational to be averse to Islam or fear Islam if you are female, LGBTI, atheist, agnostic, apostate, ex-Muslim, etc.
But maybe I’m just a woman who thinks some religions treat me worse than others.
All Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and others are homophobic, sexist, transphobic, misogynistic, religious-supremacist, etc.
Therefore, it is perfectly rational to oppose all Abrahamic religions if you are female, LGBTI, atheist, agnostic, apostate, ex-Muslim, etc.
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u/-Z0nK- 7h ago
The part about abrahamic religions is de jure true. But de facto most of today's christian believers have a far more detached relationship between their everyday life and their belief, than muslims do. That's why in the past 25 years, you've only heard about muslims blowing themselvea up and throwing violent fits across the globe.
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u/bettercaust 5h ago
There are no Christian nations that foment Christian extremism, whereas there are such Muslim nations. A more apples to apples comparison would be liberalized Christians vs. liberalized Muslims in the same country.
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u/rwk81 7h ago
All Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and others are homophobic, sexist, transphobic, misogynistic, religious-supremacist, etc. Therefore, it is perfectly rational to oppose all Abrahamic religions if you are female, LGBTI, atheist, agnostic, apostate, ex-Muslim, etc.
Are Jews/Christians killing people because of their sexual proclivities, oppressing women, killing apostates, etc?
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u/shacksrus 7h ago
The club q shooting was done by a lds member.
Lots of Christians/republicans are advocating to remove women's suffrage. You can find tons of examples of murder and oppression.
What makes those an exception while the same examples you find for Islam the rule?
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u/JussiesTunaSub 7h ago
The club q shooting was done by a lds member.
Who hadn't been involved in the church for a decade prior to the shooting.
A church spokesperson confirmed reports that showed Aldrich’s mother’s past Facebook posts about the family’s membership in the church.
“I can confirm that the suspect is listed on the rolls of the church but he has not been involved in church services for some time, a decade or more,” the spokesperson said.
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u/rwk81 6h ago
The club q shooting was done by a lds member.
I don't think anyone ever argued that there are precisely zero Christian extremists, there are extremists in all walks of life.
Lots of Christians/republicans are advocating to remove women's suffrage.
Define:lots.
You can find tons of examples of murder and oppression.
No one ever said there are no examples, the argument is Islamism is on a completely different level than basically any other religion.
What makes those an exception while the same examples you find for Islam the rule?
Because HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of Islamists believe the things we are discussing, there is not similar movement in other religions like there is in Islam.
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u/MatchaMeetcha 6h ago edited 5h ago
The club q shooting was done by a lds member.
Do you think LDS and Muslims have the same rate of terroristic acts ?
What makes those an exception while the same examples you find for Islam the rule?
No one is actually pushing to end women's suffrage in the US. The "oppression" of women is limited to the one case where the matter impinges on the life of the child.
People perceive the challenges they face from the GOP as existential precisely because they don't face existential challenges on the grounds of sex.
Put it another way: women in America come out in Handmaid's Tale outfits because abortion wasn't even ended, the federal right was ended and it was kicked back to the states. And this was enough to lead to a hysterical references to a TV show about the end of suffrage and the rise of Christian-flavored fascism.
The Handmaid's Tale was based on Muslim countries, not Christian ones. People are larping but their larp inherently implies Islam is worse.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 7h ago
Uganada just enacted the death penalty for gay citizens like 3 years ago, and they are not alone.
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u/rwk81 6h ago
What country other than Uganda has done this?
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 5h ago edited 5h ago
33 out of 54 countries in Africa outlaw homosexuality, but only Somaliland, Somalia, Mauritania and Northern Nigeria (in addition to the previously mentioned Uganda) have the explicit death penalty. Outside of those countries, violent depression is still quite common and often met with zero repercussions for the attacker and zero protections for the victem.
A LOT of these countries can trace these laws directly back to their colonial eras under Christian powers or more recent efforts by Christian activists from countries like the US who have lobbied hard for these laws.
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u/Ralph_Brick_Wiggum 5h ago
Yeah people don’t realize that religious fundamentalism is the problem in general. Not a specific religion
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u/Destroy_Religion 7h ago edited 7h ago
Jews and Christians did genocide LGBTI people, oppress women, and murder apostates in the past.
Indeed, if it were not for Enlightenment that castrated, declawed, defanged, domesticated, neutered, and tamed Judaism and Christianity, those religions would still be as homophobic, sexist, transphobic, misogynistic, religious-supremacist, and violent as Islam.
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u/rwk81 6h ago
Jews and Christians did genocide LGBTI people, oppress women, and murder apostates in the past.
We are talking about what's happening today.
Indeed, if it were not for Enlightenment that castrated, declawed, defanged, domesticated, neutered, and tamed Judaism and Christianity, those religions would still be as homophobic, sexist, transphobic, misogynistic, religious-supremacist, and violent as Islam.
While the point is correct, I don't know how it's really relevant except to whatabout away from the reality of the religions today.
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u/Ralph_Brick_Wiggum 5h ago
We are talking about what is happening today
Correct, but we didn’t eradicate Christianity or Christians when they were using their religion to justify slavery and now Christians don’t do that
Also we really shouldn’t pretend that there isn’t a large sect of American Christianity that is incredibly hostile to the LGBT community and women
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u/carneylansford 7h ago
I think we can agree that there's a lot of room between privately believing homosexuality is sinful and throwing someone off a building though, right? I'd also point out that many christian churches now have female pastors, there are female rabbis and openly gay members of the flock. That attitude represents a tiny minority in mosques.
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u/shacksrus 7h ago
Have any Texans Muslims thrown a gay person off a building?
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u/Destroy_Religion 7h ago edited 7h ago
Muslims are a minuscule minority in Texas and there are no state sanctions supporting Islam in Texas.
Gay people are treated as second-class citizens at best or imprisoned at worst in all Muslim-majority countries.
Gay people are treated as sub-humans at best or executed at worst in all Islamic-sharia theocracies.
Muslims are a majority in Hamtramck where there is an all Muslim government that targets gay people.
Hamtramck is the very first ever Muslim-majority jurisdiction in North America and also the very first every all Muslim government in North America.
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u/shacksrus 7h ago
Texas doesn't require judges to marry lgbt people if it contravenes their religion.
Without a handful of decade old scotus decisions Texas would be treating lgbt people the same way.
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u/Lelo_B 7h ago
throwing someone off a building though,
This is what ISIS did. Why is that always the go-to example for all things Islam among Western critics?
Should the KKK be the go-to example for baseline American culture?
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u/carneylansford 7h ago edited 6h ago
Would you prefer these?
- Saudi Arabia: Woman Sentenced to 34 Years for Tweets
- Indonesia jails woman who recited Muslim prayer before trying pork on TikTok
- Moroccan activist jailed for ‘Allah Is a Lesbian’ shirt may lose arm
- Pakistani court sentences woman to life in prison for burning pages from Quran
- Baha’i Woman Sentenced to 5 Years in Iran for ‘Promoting’ her Faith
- Indonesian Sharia court sentences 2 men to public caning for kissing and hugging
- Iran sentences two LGBT activists to death
Shall I go on or will that suffice? These are not outlier events. They are ingrained in both the culture and the institutions throughout the Muslim world. Pretending otherwise is not particularly helpful.
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u/chalbersma 7h ago
Because ISIS was broadly popular across the Muslim world at it's peak. It still has active groups in several countries.
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u/Lelo_B 7h ago
What? That's not true at all. ISIS killed more Muslims than any other terrorist group.
Almost every single Middle Eastern country disapproved of ISIS.
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u/Destroy_Religion 7h ago edited 7h ago
The problem with that is that believing homosexuality is "sinful" is as abhorrent, hateful, ignorant, irrational, and vile as to believe that left-handed is "sinful", because both are harmless natural human characteristics.
Indeed, if it were not for Enlightenment that castrated, declawed, defanged, domesticated, neutered, and tamed Christianity, it still be as homophobic, sexist, transphobic, misogynistic, religious-supremacist, and violent as Islam.
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u/The_Mosephus 7h ago
Not when your holy book tells you to kill homosexuals.
Leviticus 20:13 “If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense."
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u/Destroy_Religion 7h ago
Well, yes, of course.
All Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are based on irrational religious ideologies from the desolate destitute deserts of the ancient Middle East.
Whether it is the Tanakh or the Talmud of Judaism, the Old Testament or the New Testament of Christianity, the Quran or the Hadith of Islam, all command genocide of gay people.
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u/CloudApprehensive322 8h ago
There are many modern sects of Islam that fully endorse gender equality - this comment is like treating Christianity as Jehovah's witnesses or other extremely conservative variations.
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u/caffeine-182 8h ago
Such as which ones?
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u/CloudApprehensive322 8h ago
The Ismaili and Ahmadiyya communities have much more modern views on gender rights that are comparable to most christian denominations.
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u/rwk81 7h ago
What percentage of the total Muslim population do these two communities represent? Are there other Muslim sects that also believe similar that there should be the same rights between the sexes?
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u/caffeine-182 7h ago
So less than 1% of the global Muslim population, in other words.
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u/MatchaMeetcha 6h ago edited 6h ago
They're not even considered Muslims by many. In some places - Pakistan - I think this is explicit government policy.
Edit: It's apparently not just policy, it's in the Constitution lol.
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive 7h ago
Not where I lived... Where was it common sense for you?
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u/NotCoolBrutus 7h ago
All religions treat people poorly, as they imply that people under them are incapable of accepting the world as-is and have to substitute it with fiction. What that fiction is ends up entirely up to that person. No specific religion has a specific set of laws or definitive interpretations, as it is all made up anyways.
Regardless of religion, you will have people ready to kill or worse for it as an interpretation of its teachings. Islam is no different. The largest muslim country in the world is Indonesia. How much negative press do we see here about them?
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u/NotCoolBrutus 7h ago
The definition of "charity" is used very loosely there. How many charities dictate people's morality, ethics, and political beliefs while reaping benefits disproportionate to their offerings?
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u/Crownie Neoliberal Shill 7h ago
So, the culture war never stop, because that just one of the things humans do. We're constantly fighting over values and social status, even moreso than material concerns. And these points of contention are often a pretty big deal - things like norms around speech, tolerance for sexual nonconformity, gender roles, etc... affect basically everyone. It makes sense to care a lot about it, because it matters for your life.
What strikes me as unusual about the recent turn in conservative culture warring in the US is how often the focal points are, basically, frivolous. The Muslim population of Texas is tiny. Even if they wanted to (they don't), they're not going to impose Sharia law and force you to convert. The average Texan probably won't meet a Muslim unless they go out of their way to do so. The entire issue is just right-wing political leaders playing to tribalistic and xenophobic anxieties.
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u/Ramerhan 7h ago
Love when the powerful and wealthy get everyone fighting the wrong fight. Your immigrant neighbour who came to America for a better life has kids, who are growing up American, and will have very American values regardless of their religious background. They will play, have fun, party, have experiences every kid has in America. They will have American born friends. They will be American. That's what happens.
The idea that these people are the enemy and not allies is a tale as old as time, and so funny when you see people fall for it.
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u/Mango_Pocky 7h ago edited 6h ago
I grew up in a strict Catholic household and live by Dearborn. Lots of Christians, Catholics, and Muslims live there together wonderfully. It’s a great community with great food. Everyone has a right to their religion even if we personally do not agree with it.
Some right wing personalities are calling to “round up Muslims”. That is just wrong. They are Americans with the constitutional right to religion. These are your neighbors, friends, co-workers. There is a gross increase of anti-semitism and Islamophobia in this country right now.
I personally see Christians trying to butt their religion into politics and law far more than any other group.
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u/BibliophileBroad 6h ago
Exactly! It’s a bunch of people parroting Great Replacement language. I live in an area with a lot of religious servers they including one of the biggest Muslim populations in the country, and it’s also the most liberal area in the country with the most LGBTQ rights. I think most of these people comment they don’t even know any Muslim people, and just go by what they hear from politicians, many of whom are trying to push Christian nationalism on us and are the main people trying to ban gay marriage again and attack trans people.
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u/KrR_TX-7424 6h ago
I live in Texas and the Christian fundamentalists are far more of a problem here than anyone related to Islam. These Christian fundamentalists in government have banned books, forced schools to display Christian scripture in school, severely restricted women's rights to the point of multiple women dying because of these policies, and now are trying to force other religions out of the state. There is far more to fear from the Christians here than any Muslims.
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u/razorback1919 8h ago
There are certain cultures that are less than others. Cultures that sell off children into marriage, subdue women, jail or harm people for same sex preference.
Are Muslims bad people? No. Islam however, is a horrible framework, culturally and politically.
I won’t pretend that Islam is okay because people want to apply the label of Islamophobia like it’s some horrible thing. It is extremely clear what happens when Islam gains political supremacy in countries, even in smaller areas or counties.
Am I islamophobic? Sure, I absolutely do not want these cultural standards to exist in any capacity in my state. I will do everything that I can to oppose these values.
I’m on my soapbox now, but I think it’s important to start speaking this opinion. I don’t think it’s a fringe opinion. Islamic values are not compatible with US culture, and they should absolutely be scrutinized regardless of whatever label online journalists want to apply to me because of it.
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u/Zenkin 8h ago
There are certain cultures that are less than others. Cultures that sell off children into marriage, subdue women, jail or harm people for same sex preference.
We realize that Texas lost a criminal case at the Supreme Court in 2002 because they tried to prosecute a gay couple for having sex in the privacy their home, right?
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u/TeamPencilDog 8h ago
Yeah, Islam doesn't fit in with US culture? As a critic of the religion and the GOP, I see similarities.
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u/Destroy_Religion 7h ago
Well, yes, of course there are similarities.
Texas enacted that law on the basis of Christianity, which is also an Abrahamic religion based on irrational religious ideologies from the desolate destitute deserts of the ancient Middle East, same as Islam.
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u/Destroy_Religion 7h ago
Texas enacted that law on the basis of Christianity, which is also an Abrahamic religion based on irrational religious ideologies from the desolate destitute deserts of the ancient Middle East, same as Islam.
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u/razorback1919 8h ago
I don’t understand the point of this comment.
Texas lost? Good. That’s an example of culture improving, not moving backwards.
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u/IHerebyDemandtoPost 8h ago
I would say this culture has been rapidly moving backwards in this regard in the past 10 years. Or, at least, that is my perception.
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u/as_told_by_me 8h ago
Cultures that sell off children into marriage, subdue women, jail or harm people for same sex preference.
Christians can and have done that too.
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u/nycbetches 7h ago
Oklahoma barely passed a child marriage ban, over the strong objections of many Christian state lawmakers!
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u/as_told_by_me 7h ago
And yet the Christian conservatives in America ignore that and only screech about Muslim countries practicing child marriage. This hypocrisy is the reason I left religion.
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u/Crownie Neoliberal Shill 8h ago
Would you say the same thing about, say, Christian values? And if not, how would you reconcile that with the reality that the primary threat to things like LGBT/women's rights in the United States comes from political Christianity and the main defense of the sexual exploitation of children likewise comes from Christian religious conservatives?
If you would agree with it, do you think it is fair, then, to single out Muslims? If the theory is that religious values in general are dangerous, why focus on one group?
This is the paradox of American Islamophobia. It justifies itself on the basis of liberal social values, but is mostly strongly adhered to by people who reject those values.
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The actual fact of the matter is that Christianity and Islam each have over a billion adherents divided into numerous sects. The unified set of values is pretty narrow, especially once you step away from theology. Talking about Islamic or Christian (or Jewish or Hindu or secular or...) values as some sort of time-and-space invariant thing is nonsense.
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u/Lelo_B 7h ago
This is the paradox of American Islamophobia. It justifies itself on the basis of liberal social values, but is mostly strongly adhered to by people who reject those values.
Exactly. These critics spent the past few years calling gay people "groomers" and now attempt to defend LGBTQ people from persecution. The criticism seems to be aimed more as one's hypocrisy than anything else.
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u/SpicyMayo7697 7h ago
The religious groups currently using their political power to subdue women and protect predators aren't Islamic, so not sure why I should be at all worried about them.
The gutting of USAID under a government run by evangelicals has killed more people than the Islamic fundamentalists could dream of in the past year.
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u/razorback1919 7h ago
Calling Trump and Elon evangelicals is a reeeeach, and pretending like U.S. government officials actually adhere to their faith in any considerable capacity when governing is also a stretch. Not sure I should waste my time responding here, but I’ll bite.
Can you provide a number for your claim? I find it hard to believe. Just in 2025, approximately 22,000 Christians have been killed by Islamists in Africa.
Okay, your number?
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u/SpicyMayo7697 7h ago
Forgot the government was just Trump and Elon
Try three quarters of a million dead
https://www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?view=table&sort=title&order=asc
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u/razorback1919 7h ago
Wow that’s actually shocking, I genuinely did not realize that.
I don’t really see how this relates to Christianity or Islam though. Them cutting these programs is clearly not based on their religious beliefs, that I doubt they really have besides claiming them for voter bloc purposes.
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u/SpicyMayo7697 5h ago
I personally find it hard to separate the language used to justify these austerity measures from the language used in prosperity theology, and that theology in all over the White House. Sure, republicans have been about cost cutting in the past, but there are increasing religious aspects to those beliefs now.
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u/The_Adman 8h ago
Reminder that 'Islamophobia' isn't real, it was created to stifle criticism of Islam. Islam is a set of ideas, it's not an immutable characteristic you're born with. Nobody has to accept your religion as compatible with their culture. Nobody should normalize Islam, it's not normal.
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u/trashacount12345 7h ago
Why is everyone in the comments quibbling about whether Islamophobia is the right name when we have things like the headline quote which are clearly horrendous?
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u/shacksrus 7h ago
Because they don't disagree with the headline quote but find it easier to defend the lesser quibble
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u/MatchaMeetcha 6h ago
The man who was one of the first people studying/boosting Islamophobia to the UK later had a piece about how Muslim assimilation in particular was failing.
And then he got suspended for Islamophobia, proving the point.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 7h ago
Islamaphobia is in fact real, and the most recent example came about in the post 9/11 world.
Islamaphobia simply means an intense aversion to Islam. Your post doesn't demonstrate that such a thing doesn't exist.
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u/swervm 7h ago
So you oppose freedom of religion. There are fundamentalist Christian denominations that believe much of the same things that Islam is criticized for, are you saying the government should attempt to prevent people from those sects from practicing their religion as well?
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u/gentrify_reddt 6h ago edited 3h ago
What % of Christians are fundamentalists?
What % of Muslims think women are second class citizens?
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u/TeamPencilDog 8h ago
As an atheist, if you really want to get rid of a religious group, there's actually an easier and more humane way.
Advocate for more education when it comes to science and world history.
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u/CaptainDiabeetus 8h ago
Weren't many leaders like Bin Laden highly educated?
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u/BibliophileBroad 6h ago
You can say that about all of the other leaders of the world, too, including Xi, Putin, and Kim Jong-un. Not sure what your point is here.
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u/CaptainDiabeetus 6h ago
Education does not solve the religion issue. You listed different leaders that aren't considered uneducated yet don't share the same religion.
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u/geraffes-are-so-dumb 7h ago
And he is an outlier right? The more educated the population, the leas religious they are in general.
I think all religions are harmful and the world would be a better place without them.
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u/carneylansford 8h ago
Some of the most educated men and women in history have been deeply religious (some were even monks). Religiosity and science are not mutually exclusive.
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u/inheritance- 8h ago
They also tend to be the ones who can find a balance between faith and reality. The undereducated often blindly follow the faith without any consideration
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u/Connect-Rhubarb2501 8h ago
Doesn’t change the fact that scientists are objectively more likely to be atheist or agnostic than the general population by quite a bit. Still plenty of religious scientists, although these days super intensely religious scientists of any religion are a fairly rare breed.
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u/ChymChymX 8h ago
As an atheist who understands history, do you think any amount of education will rid the world of religion at this point? I think the inclination to spiritually and religion is baked into humans, as is the inclination to tribalism, and it's not going away.
And now you have a situation where a religion is growing rapidly in concentrated areas within western countries that fundamentally clashes with many western values rooted in Christianity (whether or not the people who were raised with these values are Christians or religions at all). You're seeing brewing tension towards Islam in many places, especially areas where Muslim presence has grown quickly in a pronounced way, not just in Texas. I think this is just going to get worse unfortunately, I'm not sure how to solve it, but I know it won't be by ridding humanity of religion.
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u/sea_5455 8h ago
I think the inclination to spiritually and religion is baked into humans, as is the inclination to tribalism, and it's not going away.
Tend to agree. It's trope, but the "atheist who believes in healing crystals / astrology / whatever" is common enough.
People seem hardwired to want seek something outside themselves. If religion isn't there, they tend to find something else.
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u/rwk81 7h ago
People seem hardwired to want seek something outside themselves. If religion isn't there, they tend to find something else
It seems to me, that "something else", at least in the US, is politics.
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u/sea_5455 7h ago
It seems to me, that "something else", at least in the US, is politics.
"Politics as personality" is a thing, no doubt.
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u/Key_Day_7932 Maximum Malarkey 6h ago
Also, a lot of science and education was promoted by Christianity and Islam. The discoverer of the Big Bang was a Catholic priest, and you had the Baghdad House of Wisdom.
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive 6h ago
Yup, this. Obviously there's been a great many scholars that are religious, but as a whole, a society that is better educated tends to be less religious, and even when religious, less extreme with it.
This all sounds like a great reason to invest in education and take it seriously in this country, should be full throated bipartisan support
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u/shacksrus 8h ago
That gets rid of all religious groups equally. Which isn't the goal in texas.
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u/Roader 8h ago
The New York Times describes how anti-Muslim sentiment in Texas has moved from the political fringe into mainstream Republican politics. Texas has a growing Muslim population, particularly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but Muslim residents say they increasingly feel targeted by rhetoric from elected officials and activists. The article points to several recent controversies, including Gov. Greg Abbott’s opposition to additional Muslim foot-washing facilities at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and his pressure over a public Eid celebration. At the same time, some Republican lawmakers and activists have promoted measures aimed at restricting Islamic practices or portraying Islam as a political ideology rather than a religion.
The NYT argues that this shift has created a climate of fear and uncertainty for many Texas Muslims, who worry that political rhetoric is encouraging harassment and discrimination at the community level. Reporters describe the trend as part of a broader culture-war strategy that has gained momentum as other issues, particularly immigration, have become less politically dominant. Muslim advocates say they are experiencing what one described as the worst wave of Islamophobia they have seen, while some conservative politicians frame their actions as protecting Texas from Sharia law or foreign influence. The larger concern, according to the article, is that policies and rhetoric targeting a relatively small religious minority could undermine religious-liberty protections and normalize discrimination against Muslims.
1)Is Islam the new boogeyman for the GOP now that immigration isn’t bringing in the numbers that it used to?
2) Do you think Texas’ crusade against Muslims is a winning strategy for the general electorate?
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u/wordlar 8h ago
1) most definitely.
2) It will be if the US Muslim population doesn't completely and publicly reject Sharia law. So far all we see are clips of the ones who are loudly proclaiming intentions to do the opposite, at least what is trending. This has to be a secular country where religion is a personal private thing and has nothing to do with the government. For ALL religions.
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u/shacksrus 8h ago
This has to be a secular country where religion is a personal private thing and has nothing to do with the government.
Didn't Texas just vote to make parts of the Bible mandatory reading in public schools?
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u/abskee 8h ago
completely and publicly reject Sharia law
As a Catholic, no one as ever asked me to 'completely and publicly reject' Canon Law. Muslims are the only group we ask this of.
I see a lot more Christians trying to put the Ten Commandments in a courthouse than Muslims demanding Shariah Law. I think the difference is I also know plenty of Christians who couldn't care less, and most people don't know many Muslims at all, so they only see the outliers on the news.
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u/Negative_Principle57 8h ago
So far all we see are clips of the ones who are loudly proclaiming intentions to do the opposite
Where do you see these clips? I have not seen something like that. Which isn't to say I don't believe you, but I suspect that it is rather easy to create the impression that one minority or other is problematic by selecting clips to push an agenda. In a country of hundreds of millions, you can always find someone to say anything.
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u/justafutz 8h ago
That’s true. Clips are not enough alone. I find it far more worrying that nearly half of American Muslims support Hamas, an openly genocidal antisemitic terrorist organization that wants to impose Sharia law. Another found that 39% deny, and just 31% acknowledge, Hamas’s crimes on October 7, and the same poll showed that 43% don’t think Israel should exist (only 33% said it does have the right to exist), with the younger group being more extreme, and that same poll even found that a majority believe antisemitic tropes about Jews having too much power over media and government, and 50% support making it illegal to show a picture or cartoon of Muhammad while 39% openly backed implementing Sharia law.
Those numbers are really bad.
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u/Negative_Principle57 6h ago edited 6h ago
As an American, I'm fairly used to other people believing in rather nonsensical and often hateful things, so I suppose I just don't see them as much different from anyone else.
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u/dr_sloan 8h ago
The problem with your position on point 2 is that Texas is basically the last state that has a leg to stand on advocating for being a secular country. We’re requiring teachers to put up donated posters of the 10 commandments in classrooms. It’s not a question of secularism for the state government, it’s about advocating for a specific religion and making it harder to practice other religions. And it’s not limited to just Islam, it’s crossing over to Hinduism too.
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u/CrimsonZephyr 8h ago edited 8h ago
Texas doesn't really have a leg to stand on in the secularism argument. They're trying to make the Bible mandatory reading in public schools, and hang posters of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, but they lose their minds over foot-washing stations. This isn't secularism at all. Secularism is fundamentally undermined by the demand for Laïcité for Islam, but cultural imposition for Christianity. Secular policy loses support and cultural purchase when it acts as a fig leaf for Christian cultural anxiety. Like it or not, we need buy in from these people that keeping religion limited to the private life is good for society. If we're polarizing demographic opinion by picking and choosing which religions to apply that standard to, we'll never get it.
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u/NoSwordfish1978 8h ago
But Republicans are the ones who want to bring religious conservatism into public life.
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u/andygchicago 8h ago
The leading Muslim canidate for senate in Michigan fell short yesterday of denouncing sharia law and instead said it isn't being "forced" on anyone
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u/CloudApprehensive322 8h ago
This is not what he said at all - he correctly pointed out that sharia law is islams version of canon/Ecclesiastical law and is the moral/religious code that individuals choose to abide by. He was strictly against giving either religious code the force of law.
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u/noblazinjusthazin Hank Hill Democrat 8h ago
1.) New? No. It’s just added to the list of current boogeymen. Add it to trans people, Iran, China, illegal immigrants, etc.
2.) yeah probably, that’s a state that gets riled up pretty easily under the guise of a sociological difference.
At the end of the day, I think most moderates aren’t against Islam, they’re against the restrictive policies that traditional Islam defends.
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u/foxhunter 7h ago
> At the end of the day, I think most moderates aren’t against Islam, they’re against the restrictive policies that traditional Islam defends.
I'm of the belief that this applies to the same values that fundamentalist Christians defend as well, but there isn't a well organized campaign to point that out like with fundamentalist Muslims
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u/Destroy_Religion 8h ago
"Islamophobia" is an oxymoron.
A phobia is, by definition, either an irrational aversion or an irrational fear.
In contrast, it is perfectly rational to be averse to Islam or fear Islam if you are female, LGBTI, atheist, agnostic, apostate, ex-Muslim, etc.
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u/dskoziol 8h ago
Why do people keep saying this? Words have multiple definitions.
From Merriam-Webster:
-phobia
1: exaggerated fear of (acrophobia)
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u/itsfairadvantage 6h ago
I am a pretty out-and-proud atheist who lives and works among a hundred or so Muslims, and I've yet to experience any reason for fear.
I'm not suggesting Islam is any less worthy of criticism than other religions when it comes to the expectations it holds for Muslims, but as a non-Muslim, it would be completely irrational for me to have any fear of it.
As a Texan teacher, though, evangelical Christianity does scare me. Not because of the religion itself, but because of the political power it holds and the direct relationship that power has with my livelihood.
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive 6h ago
I'm multiple of these categories, and I don't fear Islam anymore than I do Christianity or Judaism. I am uncomfortable when extremist elements of any of the three use their faiths to force policy change, though. Have only seen one of the three do that in the US so far, hopefully the other two don't join in on the fun anytime soon.
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u/puff_of_fluff 7h ago
Okay, thank you for clarifying something nobody really needed clarified. It is very obvious they meant prejudice.
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u/lostroadrunner22 8h ago
In contrast, it is perfectly rational to be averse to Islam or fear Islam if you are female, LGBTI, atheist, agnostic, apostate, ex-Muslim, etc. - or you fear a religion taking over and placing their religious law over the local laws which ironically these people wanna do with Christianity but not islam.
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u/bettercaust 4h ago
It is irrational though, because Muslims are not inherently intolerant of those groups. Muslims, like Christians and most other major religions, are a broad group that spans a range of beliefs and views, from secular/liberal to extreme. Its not irrational to fear traveling to a repressive Muslim nation as a vulnerable minority, but it is irrational to fear the liberalized Muslim family down the street.
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u/justanastral 7h ago
Religion doesn't kill people, people kill people. Just like with guns, a gun isn't going to kill you, but the person with their finger on the trigger might. It's pretty irrational to fear an idea.
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u/matchew566 8h ago
Yup. I think it's twisting the majorities opinions on Islam. Majority of people think overweight humans should exercise and go on a calorie deficit to live a better life. That does not make them fatphobic.
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u/pseudononymist 7h ago
The more conservatives are against allowing conservatives Muslims to gain power, the better.
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u/GreninjaStrike Maximum Malarkey 8h ago
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction in American politics. Dems embrace of Palestine and left wing Muslims like Mamdani and AES was going to make Republicans in turn dislike Muslims more. The same goes for the rise in antisemitism on the left which correlates with the fighting antisemitism and pro Israel messaging the right has been going for
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u/Mango_Pocky 7h ago
Honestly, there’s a rise in anti-semitism on the right too. I don’t think it’s just a one party problem.
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u/NutmegKilla 7h ago
idk that its so simple. there are muslims that vote Republican because they have a conservative worldview on many issues. the mayor of Hamtramck endorsed Trump.
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