Jeb Bush ally slams Islam (Broward clergyman/political appointee)

[seafan]

Jeb Bush ally slams Islam

BY DARRAN SIMON
July 08, 2006

Remarks on a radio show about his views on Islam may cause conflict for a Pompano Beach minister who is well-known in Republican circles.



JOE RIMKUS JR. / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

POMPANO BEACH: The Revs. Alonzo Neal, left, and O'Neal Dozier stand at the planned site of a mosque.

The Rev. O'Neal Dozier, a Broward clergyman who has advised President Bush and is a political appointee of Gov. Jeb Bush, took to the air waves Friday to criticize Islam as a ''cult'' religion.
The radio appearance by Dozier, who serves on the governor's committee that screens Broward judicial nominees, startled a local Muslim leader, and prompted the governor to immediately distance himself from the statements.

Reached later in the day by The Miami Herald, a contrite Dozier said he was ''concerned'' his comments could jeopardize his position on Broward's Judicial Nominating Commission. But he did not disavow those comments.
''The Islamic religion in my view is a cult,'' Dozier said Friday, when asked to recap the controversial comments he made earlier on The Steve Kane Radio Show on WNN-AM 1470. ''On the show I said that Islam is a dangerous religion.''
Dozier was on the program to address efforts by him and other black ministers to block a plan by the Islamic Center of South Florida to build a center in Northwest Pompano Beach.
The ministers say they don't want the Islamic center, with its mosque, in their neighborhood. They have argued it will jeopardize the community's safety because of what one group member characterized as the religion's ''track record'' of terrorism.

Dozier, 57, of Pompano Beach, has been leading the charge.

snip

On Friday, Gov. Bush's office issued a statement distancing him from Dozier.

''Gov. Bush in no way shares Rev. Dozier's views on Islam,'' said Alia Faraj, Bush's spokeswoman. ''Florida's greatest strength is its diverse population, which is bolstered by the many faiths of our residents.''
Dozier said later Friday that his comments ''shouldn't be linked'' to the governor.
He said he is concerned about political repercussions. Gov. Bush appointed Dozier to serve on Broward's Judicial Nominating Commission.
''I am concerned about the criticism in that I don't see where my personal opinion should cause an uproar in other people's hearts,'' he said.

Dozier, who has a degree from the John Marshall Law School in Atlanta, is among a growing number of black ministers who have embraced conservative Republican values on such issues as abortion and same-sex marriages.
In the past, Dozier has asked Gov. Bush's appointments to the Broward circuit and county courts if they were ''God-fearing,'' and inquired about their parenting abilities.

snip

[seafan]

1. The GOP goal is to split and suppress African Americans' votes.

The black ministers' stance in opposition to the mosque has surprised some experts on Islam.

''For the first time, you are seeing a group of black pastors following the white fundamentalist leaders of our country,'' said Lawrence Mamiya, an activist and professor of religion and Africana studies at New York's Vassar College.

Traditionally, blacks and Muslims in America have forged a healthy, harmonious relationship -- in part because their leaders tackle the same issues affecting their neighborhoods -- drugs, crime, racism and other social ills, Mamiya said.

If ministers' sentiments about Islam were to become a trend, it would cause a ''serious serious split in the black community,'' and threaten that relationship, Mamiya said.

(Emphasis added)


And splitting the black community is precisely what the GOP is engineering to happen. This is yet another devious plan by a close ally of Jeb Bush to divide and suppress the African American vote for any candidates who truly want to strengthen their communities.

Like progressive Democrats.


Jeb has a legion of operatives who are rolling out all their new products early.

[PsychoDad]

3. Bingo...

You hit that right on the head.

The GOP has kept poor whites and blacks from uniting for common goals through racism, now they further seek to subdivide blacks using religion.


Peace.

[ngant17]

16. hasn't he a clue?

I can understand the African-American bourgeois and petty-bourgeois supporting Jeb Bush. Very unusual to have the preachers jump on the Rupug bandwagon, even in Florida. I wonder if he has any idea of what people had to endure during MLK's day and the civil rights struggles here?

Doesn't the good minister know where the rich in Southern US inherited their money? Cotton fields and Confederate plantations. Them Dixecrats switched parties a long time ago. 'Oreo', if you ask me.

[rocktivity]

2. But ALL religions are cults

and Islam's been around longer.

:headbang:
rocknation

[demosincebirth]

5. Islam, the only religion that if you leave it, you have

your head chopped off or stoned.

[Terran1212]

6. the fuck?

[Imajika]

7. Yup..

conversion from Islam is apostasy and the sentence is indeed death.

We will wake the PC police talking this way though........shhhhhhhhhh....

[RadiDem]

10. I think the Old Test. prescribes death for worshipping 'other gods' no?

[RadiDem]

11. I was correct "stone them with stones, till they die”>

1st. Commandment, Exodus 20:3 “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. Old Testament punishment - Deuteronomy 17:1-5 “And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heavens, which I have not commanded. Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing and shalt stone them with stones, till they die”. Deuteronomy 13:6-10, “If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is of thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. Thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God." Exodus 22:20 “He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed”. New Testament punishment - Mark 16:16 “He that believeth not, shall be damned”

[demosincebirth]

13. I don't think we've allowed that for quite some time.

Islam still enforces that code. Just recently, a former muslim, now christian, in Afghanistan, escaped such punishment by the skin of his teeth. Maybe our memories are too selective to recall the incident. Christianity has had its dark side too, but some ignore what really happens today in this world under some Islamic Theocracies. .


.

[Tempest]

19. Yeah, it's so much better...

When Christians kill because of the color of someone's skin.

Case in point, the Iraq war and Bush's professing of his faith.

Remember when he called the war on terrorism a "crusade"?

[demosincebirth]

21. Well, then, go and live in one of those Theocracies.

You are still comparing what Christian religions have be accused of doing 500 years ago, while under our noses Islamic Theocracies, still chop you head off for some crimes, like, maybe even checking out a guy or a gal the "wrong' way."

Sorry, but your argument doesn't float.

[ngant17]

22. we're in Iraq to educate those barbarians

by raping and murdering their children

[Faygo Kid]

4. Jeb Bush is another radical in "moderate" conservative clothing.

If you can call him "moderate," which I can't, actually. He may be somewhat smarter than his brother, though (who isn't?) so Rove can't groom him to take power. I look for Karl to find another dolt with a famous father, like George Allen, to put in the White House.

[Roland99]

8. And pseudo-Christianity is SOOO much better.

:eyes:

[AlinPA]

9. Republicans are getting bolder now- they can say what they want. Bushes

put these people in threir positions and smirk behid their sleeves. Bush's General Boykin claimed his and Bush's God was better than Muslim's God. And Franklin Graham who spoke at Bush's inauguration said the same sort of thing, called Muslims evil.

[seafan]

12. Rev. Dozier: "Lord said Charlie Crist will be our next governor."

This guy hears voices too.

May 22, 2006

Pastor: Lord said Charlie Crist would be next governor (Florida..)

[nealmhughes]

14. Any religion that has organization and ceremonies is a cult by def.

In the academic anthropological sense of the term. I would say that Islam is a variety of cults instead of "a cult." Same for Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Shinto...et al.
But I doubt the good pastor had that in mind when he said it.

[ngant17]

15. Thank God for Dr. Freud

Monotheism originated from sun worship, this seems pretty self-evident to me. From the ancient Aten solar cult in Egypt, we can trace it to include the classic ones from the deserts of the Middle East: Islam, Judaism and it Christian offspring. Freud's monograph is very convincing (see "Moses and Monotheism", link to some text here http://geocities.com/ngant17/monotheism.txt ).

As for the law about getting killed for changing your faith, that is a serious psychotic delusion. And a dangerous one at that.

Genetically, Jews are no different racially from the Arabs. The DNA proves this.

We all descended from African apes somewhere in that proverbial Garden of Eden.

[demosincebirth]

18. Oh, such knowledge just befudles me.

[onager]

17. Will pass this along to the cultists this morning...

It's early morning here in Egypt, and in about an hour I'll get into a car with three dangerous Muslim cultists.

:rofl:

We will take a 90-minute ride into the countryside, to our job site...as I've been doing for about 9 or 10 months now.

I'm an atheist, so I don't have a god in this fight. Some of my Muslim co-workers know that. It's not much of an issue with them. When I told one of them once, he just shrugged and said: "That's cool. Some of my friends are non-believers."

I doubt that "Rev." Dozier would be as calm about having an infidel working beside him.

Contrary to popular belief in One Nation Under Jesus, most Muslims in Muslim countries don't sit around planning ways to convert or punish non-believers. Maybe some do, but I haven't run into them. Overall they are Muslim for the exact same reason that most American Xians are Xian--they were born and raised in the religion.

Every once in a while, one of them will complain that the form of Islam practiced here isn't "pure" enough. Even they don't sound much different from some of my Fundie Xian relatives in the American South.

[ngant17]

20. a better link here

http://www.geocities.com/ngant17/moses9a.html

Just a longer article related to Dr. Freud's original thesis.

BTW you might want to read the books by the Egyptian scholar Ahmed Osman and the Egyptologist Jan Assman.

“Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus”, 2nd edition
2002, by Ahmed Osman. Bear & Company; ISBN: 1591430046

"Moses the Egyptian - The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism", 1997, by Jan Assman.
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.; ISBN 0-674-58738-3 (alk.)

Osman's website:
http://ahmedosman.com/home.html

Ahmed's book "Moses and Akhenaten" is the basis for the John Haymen motion picture "Moses and Nefertiti" that will be filmed in Egypt is early 2006.

Jan Assmann's thesis is that the historical figure(s) represented in "Moses" was an Egyptian priestly exponent of the Akhenaten/Amarna monotheism, which lasted a couple hundred years and ended under the reign of Tutankhamun.