The Colorado Independent’s John Tomasic:
“The only news is that it’s no longer news that a Republican lawmaker spews anti-Muslim bigotry,” said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Hooper was referring to the fact that state Senator Kevin Grantham, a Cañon City Republican, recently said he saw merit in a proposal put forward by lightning-rod Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders that lawmakers should ban any future mosque construction in the state…
Wilders appeared as a featured speaker at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver last week. Wilders has long campaigned to ban immigration from Muslim countries to the Netherlands and to outlaw mosque building in the country. He has compared the Koran with Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and has lobbied to have the book banned in the Netherlands.
…Grantham said he agreed with Wilders that mosques are not primarily religious buildings.
“Mosques are not churches like we would think of churches,” he told the Colorado Statesman. “[Muslims] think of mosques more as a foothold into a society, as a foothold into a community, more in the cultural and in the nationalistic sense. Our churches – we don’t feel that way, they’re places of worship, and mosques are simply not that, and we need to take that into account when approving construction of those.” [Pols emphasis]
Nearly two weeks before the Western Conservative Summit in downtown Denver was convened, we discussed the slate of speakers, most notably including controversial anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders. But this summit proceeded largely under the radar–some coverage was given to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s appearance, but nothing about Wilders until days afterward, in an excellent story in the relatively obscure Colorado Statesman.
Not that we take it personally, but let’s put this in perspective. Rep. Robert Ramirez’s self-injurious freakout yesterday over our wholly deserved critique of his laughable mail piece nets stories in the state’s newspaper of record and a major Denver television station. They were fine stories, though they didn’t turn out very well for Rep. Ramirez–that’s not the point.
State Sen. Kevin Grantham talks about banning mosques, and this does not merit a story?
Taken together, intention or oversight, these do not seem like responsible journalistic choices.
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To be fair, the story did make it’s way around social media — specifically facebook and twitter — yesterday. After the civil unions vote, I think some people may be numb to the bigotry of some members of the GOP in Colorado. Seems like there is another jaw-dropping story of intolerance and close-mindedness every few weeks lately. I stand in disgust and outrage with our Muslim and interfaith communities in CO.
that there is some squeamishness/cowardice/political concern on the part of Dem pols about being seen as actively supporting Muslims so they aren’t exactly knocking each other over making media attracting public denunciations or demands that Rs renounce the guy. That kind of thing would get more attention. Sadly, Dem pols probably would rather just look the other way.
On the Ramirez story, well that’s all fun and games for Dems who would much rather draw media attention to something like that. Besides, horse race blooper stories are a media fave. It’s much easier to find out what the latest gaffe is than to find a detailed discussion of important issues in the MSM, especially on most local bubble head TV news.
Is Colorado Pols a little butt hurt over getting smacked by Peak Politics in the Denver Post yesterday?
http://blogs.denverpost.com/th…
whatever Ramirez, Ronald McDonald and his daughter want to do is their own business !
but if there IS something going on between Ramirez, Ronald McDonald and his daughter all I am saying that it really is not for us to pry into. Lets all try to keep this a clean campaign, and focus on the issues.
with Ronald McDonald and his daughter are not proper subjects of TV and Print news coverage. Shame on them!
squeamish/cowardice/political concern. We hate it when our elected officials want to look into something. Grantham is a touchstone for evangelical christians and we really want to inflame that base going into an election. Not. So he is deeply confused, ignore him or invite him to your mosque.
Mosques are “a foothold into a society, as a foothold into a community,” but “Our churches” are “places of worship.” There may a church, mosques, temple, etc. out there that does not do community outreach, community service, and other good works to increase their visibility in the community, but I am not aware of those. Every faith community that I have ever been involved with has considered it important to engage the community, “establish a foothold.” It is only when your bigotry or bias clouds your vision that you think community involvement, (by Muslims, Catholics, Mormons, Scientologists), is a bad thing. Try to be honest, the only reason to ban mosques is because you want to ban muslims.
I’ve always suspected that Baptists were trying to gain a foothold in communities since I no longer see dancing in the streets. I certainly did not think that mosques were such an insidious plot. Boy, sure shows how naive I have been.
Seriously. Did this guy actually go to school? Do these guys sit up at night thinking this stuff up?
If we’re going to be concerned about religions taking root in cultures and changing them, there are a bunch of Christian churches that we can point at because of the great missionary era into the less developed world.
and doing the work of God.
Jews are evil because they killed Jesus. Thus they got the bulk of the blame for the last great depression. I realize those two things don’t seem to go together but just roll with it.
Muslims are evil because they stubbornly refuse to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Those bastards just won’t get on board with the program. And we’re in the middle of another depression. Again, I realize these things don’t exactly go together but hey, reason ain’t at the top of the Republican agenda these days. Nor is science or independent thought.
I’ll just sum up for Grantham and save the dude some time–Christianity is the one true religion. Everything else is voodoo. There. That was easy enough. (Wonder who he’ll vote for since Mormonism clearly falls into the voodoo category.)
Match these quotes with the credited speaker:
A. Ghandi
B. Tutu
C. Dali Lama
D. R. Reagan
Winner winner , chicken dinner!!
All are transcribed- sources available upon request.
Most have video.
Conclusion: build as many mosques as you want, illegal wars are not always a bad idea, welfare fraud should be a crime.
I think I was actually more shocked that this position wasn’t featured as a centerpiece of the Republican Platform.
Here’s not just some two-bit, back-benching bozo like Grantham but the former Majority Leader of the Colorado Senate, saying that every single Muslim American is a threat to America:
It’s disgusting. John Andrews is a pig. I saw him once in a grocery store and didn’t say anything to him. If I ever see him again I will tell him to his face that he’s an un-American, bigoted traitor to the very Constitution he professes to care about.
I think of the Boy Scouts including Eagle Scouts who are proud Muslims and proud Americans, proud to live in a country that (supposedly) doesn’t discriminate against people based on their religion. I think of proud, patriotic American Muslim soldiers, and teachers, and legislators. And then I think of an idiotic, bigoted jerk like John Andrews and am ashamed for my country.
blame the Democrats for not making a bigger deal of this story. The reason why the Ramirez story got legs was because the Republicans decided to turn it into the story. If the Colorado Democratic Party decided to make a big deal out of Grantham’s comment, there would have been a story.