Anti-Muslim

Florida Family Association Compares Muslims to Snakes, Wins Support from Other Fringe Activists

Even after Lowe’s and other companies succumbed to the demands of the ultraconservative Florida Family Association, which routinely launches pressure campaigns against advertisers on shows like Modern Family, Dancing With the Stars, and Degrassi, to drop their ads on TLC’s reality show All-American Muslim, the FFA has ramped up its attacks on the Muslim community. While defending his group’s efforts, David Caton of the FFA likened American Muslims to snakes:

The show was not an accurate portrayal American Muslims, he said, because it doesn't disclose that "99.9 percent of Muslims agree with the principles of Sharia law," the restrictive religious code that Caton and others warn leads to the spread of Islamic extremism.

"This has all to do with the way this program was constructed to deliberately present Muslims in America as one flavor," he told The Associated Press. "It would be similar to the Learning Channel doing a report on 'snakes are good family pets' without reporting that there are four in Florida that are venomous. ....For TLC to choose to profile five people as an aberration of the Islamic faith is propaganda."

Pamela Geller, whose diatribe against the show helped spark the FFA’s campaign, pleaded with readers to shop at Lowe’s, blasting a California lawmaker who criticized Lowe’s and Russell Simmons for placing ads on the show to push back against FFA’s pressure campaign:

Advertisers like Lowes are choosing not run their ads on this propaganda. Good for them. The idea that Russel Simmons is threatening and intimidating is indicative of how little Simmons knows of sharia and Islam. Islamic racism is monstrous and is rampant today.

…

A craven lawmaker seeks to exploit this non-story. Lowes chose not to advertise. That's it. Are we going to force advertisers to finance propaganda or taqiyya?

PLEASE SHOP LOWES. And send a word of thanks to Lowe's Corporate for their decision to drop the show's sponsorship.

The FFA is also finding support from Religious Right groups such as the American Decency Association, which called All-American Muslim “dangerous” because the people featured on the reality show don’t talk about jihad, which if you believe anti-Muslim stereotypes is what all Muslims talk about all the time! The group’s president also knocked the Council on American-Islamic Relations for criticizing Lowe’s, arguing that CAIR wants to “overcome our very own Constitution”:

Bill Johnson, president of American Decency Association, argues that the show is a complete whitewash designed to make the Muslim community appear attractive.

"And that's what makes it so dangerous," he tells OneNewsNow. "We've been watching it over these several weeks that it's been broadcast, and they stay very conveniently away from [mentioning] jihad or anything of that nature."

Johnson says their campaign has brought on the ire of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has described the efforts as "bigoted" and "pander[ing] to those who promote religious and ethnic hatred." But CAIR, he says, must be exposed for what it truly is.

"They are not [in the] mainstream," he alleges. "They're operating behind the scenes, propagandizing it [Islam] to influence the young and the old so that one day they can incorporate sharia law in our country and overcome our very own Constitution."

The ADA said it would join the FFA in pressuring TLC to drop the show “because it is merely trying to make us dumb and dumber”:

For that is what TLC is doing with “All American Muslim” – trying to show a small set of people as representing a movement that has evil intentions not only upon America but upon the world.

There is so much at stake in just playing dumb or actually being dumb and silent. There is already enough evidence in Europe and throughout the world to see the handwriting on the wall as we study radical Islam’s strategy and observe it being unfolded around the world. Therefore we monitor this seemingly innocuous show because it is merely trying to make us dumb and dumber. We are to accept the show and it’s one-sided portrayal of Islam at face value but that truly is unwise.

We monitor the show and comment because we believe there is more than ample evidence to conclude that America is targeted!
Brian Tashman's blog

Meet The Extremist Group Lowe's Caved To Over 'All-American Muslim'

After Lowe’s capitulated to the calls from the Florida Family Association to withdraw its ads from the TLC reality show All-American Muslim, the home improvement company immediately faced a hostile response from consumers not driven by unremitting anti-Muslim bigotry. The Florida Family Association launched its pressure campaign against All-American Muslim advertisers by citing the articles of anti-Muslim activists Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who claim that the show misrepresents the Muslim community because it doesn’t match their stereotypes of Muslims as anti-American terrorists. Spencer demanded TLC create a show about a secular Muslim who becomes a terrorist and Geller claimed that the “program is an attempt to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad” because the people in the show aren’t terrorists, and smeared Think Progress reporter as a “Dhimmi Jew” for defending TLC.

While siding with the likes of Spencer and Geller is bad enough, the Florida Family Assocation has a long history of not only attacking Muslims but also President Obama, entertainment companies and the LGBT community:

  • The group went after Campbell’s soup for boosting the “advancement of Islam and Sharia law in the United States” because the company made halal soups and sponsored a conference held by a Canadian Muslim relief organization.
  • Predicting that “Islam will not sweep into America overnight though it could under the current president” as the “Islamization of America will most likely happen city by city,” the FFA launched a website to combat the purported “Islamization” of Tampa, warning that “Tampa is headed toward embracing Islam.”
  • The FFA also waged a campaign against Modern Family, bragging that they convinced “107 companies to stop advertising during the ABC show Modern Family after the advertisers received thousands of emails from Florida Family Association supporters. Florida Family Association objects to Modern Family because the show labels a same-sex couple with an adopted child as a modern family and attempts to normalize homosexuality by contrasting it with heterosexual couples that the show characterizes as abnormal.”
  • Unsurprisingly, the FFA went after Chaz Bono’s appearance on Dancing With The Stars, saying “Chaz’s appearance on this show looks like nothing more than social engineering to mainstream extreme parts of the homosexual agenda.”
  • The group helped pass a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, a ban on same-sex parents adopting children, and claimed to have sent state legislators “over 10,000 emails opposing Domestic Partnerships and legislation that promotes the homosexual lifestyle,” including legislation that would bar discrimination against people due to their sexual orientation.
  • The FFA also regularly protests Gay Day at Disney World for “offending unsuspecting families,” even contracting a plane to fly over Disney with a seven foot banner reading, “WARNING GAY PRIDE DAY@DISNEY 2DAY.” They even campaigned against the AARP for starting a program aimed at older gays and lesbians, saying it promotes “special rights for immoral behavior.”
Brian Tashman's blog

700 Club Features Story Of Phony Ex-Terrorist

If Pat Robertson’s CBN News wants to be treated as a credible news source, it probably should stop elevating the story of Kamal Saleem.

Saleem, who was also prominently featured in The Call: Detroit – where he urged other Muslims to convert to Christianity – and told rally attendees that he is the descended of the “Grand Wazir of Islam.” However, the title is not found anywhere in Islam. While preparing for The Call:Detroit, Saleem said that President Obama planned “to break down Article 6” of the Constitution in order to enforce “Islamic law,” warning “if he breaks this, the Sharia law will be supreme in America.”

An investigation by CNN found that Saleem is one of a handful of “fundamentalist Christians posing as ex-terrorists,” and a Middle East studies professor at the conservative Calvin College said his story “is not verifiable and without it he’s no different from other fundamentalist preachers.” Howard even wrote a review of Saleem’s book, which he called “obsessively, sadistically violent,” highlighting Saleem’s many contradictions in his backstory and his blatant and bizarre misrepresentations of Islam, saying, “Suffice it to say that if the subject were Jews, this book could not have been published.” Howard even points out that Focus on the Family, a former employer of Saleem, even had doubts about Saleem’s conversion story.

Haroon Moghul of Religion Dispatches also points out inconsistencies in his story of working for rival Palestinian secular and Islamist groups simultaneously and his claim that as a Muslim he was “allergic to Jesus,” even though Muslims consider Jesus the Messiah.

Why would CBN News bolster such a clear fabricator?

CNN notes that “Saleem, whose real name is Khodor Shami, worked for Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network for sixteen years.”

On Friday, CBN’s The 700 Club featured a story on Saleem where he discussed how he tried “to wage Cultural Jihad” in the Bible Belt:

Kamal was seven when his parents sent him to Muslim training camps to learn to use weapons and engage and kill the enemy. The boys were also taught another, more subtle form of warfare…

“We were training for what’s called, ‘Culture Jihad,’ which is shifting cultures. Culture Jihad is unlike the sword, unlike the rifle. It is the Jihad that will come into your world.”

By his 20s, Kamal was chosen to wage Cultural Jihad on America.

“In Islam, liberty, freedom, monarchy, all these are idols and must be brought down. So the liberty that you have in United States of America is anti-Islam, so America must be changed. So I moved to the 'Bible Belt' specifically. The Bible Belt was the strongest of the strongest. That’s where the stout Christians are, and I want to take on the best of the best, because I considered myself as the sword of Islam. I thought, 'I’m anointed. I’m unique. I’m selected. I’m coming to a country and a culture to change it. I have the power of Allah with me.'"
Brian Tashman's blog

Religious Right Groups Launch Fight Against TLC Reality Show

When TLC introduced a reality show about Muslim families living in Dearborn, Michigan, called All-American Muslim, it didn’t take long for anti-Muslim activists to throw a fit that the families in the program didn’t fit their stereotype of Muslims as bloodthirsty and devious terrorists. Robert Spencer urged TLC to make a show about an American Muslim who “ended up participating in jihad activity,” and the Florida Family Association claimed to have convinced eighteen companies to pull their ads from the show.

Earlier this year, the same group demanded companies stop advertising on TeenNick because the show Degrassi featured a transgender character. The FFA said in an alert to members:

The Learning Channel's new show All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law. The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.

…

Clearly this program is attempting to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad and to influence them to believe that being concerned about the jihad threat would somehow victimize these nice people in this show.

Forida [sic] Family Association sent out an email alert on November 15, 2011 to inform supporters about The Learning Channel’s new show called All-American Muslim and encouraged supporters to send emails to advertisers.

Truth in Action Ministries, formerly Coral Ridge Ministries, also attacked the reality show and said it is part of the “stealth jihad”:

Jerry Newcombe, Truth in Action Ministries' senior producer and analyst, says the major problem with the program is that it's not going to show the reality of "pure Islam."

"It's a free country. Muslims are free to practice their religion here (thanks to Christianity, ultimately). What is sad, though, is that the truth about the goals of radical Islam are hidden from many Americans through programs like the one on TLC. Islam wants to take over the world. If they have to use force, they'll do that. But otherwise, they'll do it by what Robert Spencer calls 'stealth jihad,'" Newcombe said.
Brian Tashman's blog
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