TN tea party won't drop speaker for Islam views

[guruoo]

ERIK SCHELZIG, Associated Press Writer

NASHVILLE - Tea party organizers will not drop a speaker from a Tennessee convention this weekend despite calls from a national Muslim rights group that considers her anti-Islamic.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations had urged that Pamela Geller be cut from the Tennessee Tea Party Convention in Gatlinburg over her views on Muslims. Washington-based CAIR said in a release Thursday that it objects to Pamela Geller's presentation titled "The Threat of Islam."

Convention organizer Anthony Shreeve said in an e-mail today that Geller will speak despite those concerns.

"We will not follow any request from CAIR," Shreeve said. "We also believe in the right to freedom of speech as given to us by our U.S. Constitution."

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/may/21/group-wants-speaker-dropped-tenn-tea-party/

[Skinner]

1. Duh. Of course she's anti-Islamic.

If she weren't anti-Islamic, she wouldn't have been invited to speak.

[Angry Dragon]

2. The Threat of Christianity

Or the Threat of Religion ..... Feel free to just exchange the words

I would like to find a empty place in the world and let the religions just fight it out among themselves until there is only one left to see which side god is on. Why do they feel that it is okay to force their beliefs on another??

[DavidDvorkin]

14. Exactly!

In the West, that's the real threat.

I wouldn't generalize it to religion, either. Stick to the threat of Christianity.

[Angry Dragon]

16. I was trying not to play favorites

I was trying to avoid any "christian heathens" coming after me

[sui generis]

3. see here's where I have a problem with the exercise of

freedom of speech in that context.

I can say honestly, and for my own reasons that I'm happy to share, I don't like Islam. I don't like Christianity either, or Judaism or any structured ritualized faith I can think of. However, I accept them (the various manifestations of those faiths) so long as they maintain a polite social distance from me and don't intrude on my home life, my shopping life, or my family life.

The difference is however, I would draw a very hard line as a public or publicized person in saying "The Threat of _____" is acceptable free speech because that implies action MUST be taken to avoid this looming catastrophe, and that means acting on dislike of an idea.

The teabaggers are dishonest to their cores, but we know that. They are our Khmer Rouge - they want to drive the intelligensia out into the country to work the fields, to death and shoot anyone who reads too much.

[Recursion]

4. But self-identified Tea Party members are more highly educated than the average American

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/meet-the-tea-partiers-male-rich-and-college-educated.php

These are the same middle-aged white guys who complain about not being able to burn leaves in their yard and that their ex-wives got custody of their kids. They're not the Khmer Rouge.

[sui generis]

12. oh but they want to be both

intelligensia and anti-elitists

educimated peeple no how to speel write

Like most conservatives, they generalize from small to the universe. Therefore the one middle aged white guy with most of his teeth who didn't flunk out of college or get sent to jail for beating his dog and wife is now the flag bearer for their educational and intellectual credentials.

I know I'm generalizing but the alarming thing is these are people who are a little more out there than wanting the freedom to burn leaves. they want some other freedoms, like the freedom to require prayer in schools, the freedom to stop anyone who isn't the right shade of white for questioning, etc. They're not the Khmer Rouge, of course. That was hyperbole, at least for now. But they certainly do claim to be anti-elitist and they are most certainly conservative.

[notesdev]

5. Religious demands for censorship

should not be accommodated. If your religion is all that then you can bear a few slings and arrows.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. So, you stand adamantly opposed to the Anti-Defamation League, right?

[notesdev]

10. What does that have to do with anything?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Change "CAIR" to "ADL" and "Anti-Islamic" speaker to "Anti-semitic" speaker.

Would you still be of the same opinion?

[notesdev]

20. Absolutely

"I may not agree with what you say but I'll fight to the death to defend your right to say it" - Voltaire

This is the essence of what free speech means.

I may not like what a person says but I like even less the idea that some other person can tell me what thoughts I may and may not express.

[Skip Intro]

17. Correct. She has a right to express her views and those who chose to have a right to hear them.

Fuck any religion telling me or anyone else what is or is not acceptable speech.

[guruoo]

21. Critics of her view also have a right to take her and the Tea Party to task for it

[pinboy3niner]

7. Amazing: This "news" report gives NO information about Geller

Just the title of her presentation. So I found THIS interesting characterization of her from a blogger:


"Pam Geller’s blog has earned her a spot in the Conservative limelight. She frequently attacks Barack Obama, pushing and originating conspiracy theories that include: Obama is a secret Muslim, Obama is not American, Obama is the illegitimate son of Malcolm X, Obama is an anti-Semite. She writes in an August 1st blog about Obama’s travel to Pakistan in the 80’s, “I think he went for the drugs and came back with jihad.”

"The other topic that she pursues frequently is Islam and Muslims, which she considers to not even be a religion but more of a fascist movement. She is close allies with many in the right-wing movement who are considered anti-Muslim such as: Neo Nazi Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer Rejected by Academics: , Andrew Bostom, phony Khalim Massoud, Jerome Corsi WorldNetDaily Loon Writer, Brigitte Gabriel Sincere Hypocrisy, Nut Job Joe Kaufman, Dave Gaubatz a white supremacist, and others. She believes that Islam is at war with the West and that Westerners must stop Muslims at all costs."

http://www.zimbio.com/European+Union/articles/kKj41CZQla3/Racist+Pamela+Geller+Phony+Khalim+Massoud

[Rebubula]

8. Well...

...I am anti-Islamic.

And anti-Christian and anti-religion on the whole.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. And anti-semitic?

[Rebubula]

11. No...

...not anti-Semitic.

However, I am anti-Judaism in the same vein as the others.

Religion is a mental illness and has been an albatross around the neck of humanity for 100s of generations.

[KonaKane]

13. It never takes long for these threads to become a blanket attack on religion

such is life on DU. When the participants discover that they are not changing minds, not making any new friends, by bashing religious people, then we'll start to get somewhere.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

18. I find that a blanket attack on religion is intrinsically more fair than an attack on one religion.

Closer to the root of the problem, too.

[Ed Barrow]

15. Rep. Steven King (R-IA) embraces Geller and will attend this convention (link)

Rep. Steven King (R-Iowa) has rejected calls by a Muslim rights organization to drop out of a Tennessee Tea Party convention this weekend because of the participation of an activist-blogger who’s railed against Islam. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pressed Tea Party organizers to disinvite Pamela Geller, head of the group Stop the Islamization of America, and asked King to cancel his participation in the event if she remained on the program.

Calling Islam "the religion of barbarism" that "inspired Hitler and the Nazis," Geller has used her blog to assail this religion. She has claimed that President Barack Obama is “a muhammadan…who wants jihad to win" and recently posted cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed as a pig with the words "Piss Be Upon Him," as CAIR cites in its statement on Geller. She is scheduled to present the Tea Partiers a lecture on the "Threat of Islam."

In the face of CAIR's protest, King is standing strong with Geller. The Republican believes that Geller "is a credible spokeswoman on these sort of issues," his communications director John Kennedy tells Mother Jones. "She is a nationally recognized authority on the threat of radical Islam. To extent that her comments reflect her state of mind, we should err on the side of her as being credible alternative to anything that CAIR has to say.”

King, moreover, believes that Tennessee Tea Party should be commended for including Geller in its line-up of speakers this weekend, according to Kennedy. "The beauty of the First Amendment that it protects even controversial political discussion," says the spokesman. "The shame of radical Islam is that it punishes—in some instances with death—dissenting views."



http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/05/cair-king-pamela-geller-islam-tea-party