N.H. conference signals mainstreaming of anti-Muslim bigotry in GOP presidential primary
A conference hosted by some of the country’s most virulent anti-Muslim activists is attracting several Republican presidential contenders to Bedford tomorrow.
Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki and Rick Santorum are all scheduled to address the New Hampshire National Security Action Summit, which is being held in Bedford’s Southeastern Regional Education Service Center. Foremost among the topics to be addressed by the speakers is “The Threat from Iran, Shariah and The Global Jihad Movement.”
The all-day event is sponsored by the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank led by Frank Gaffney, which claims the United States is under serious threat of coming under Islamic religious law. The Al-Waleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding has documented Gaffney’s history of Islamophobia:
CSP’s founder and president, Frank Gaffney, has long advanced a litany of Islamophobic tropes. In a 2009 column for the Washington Times, he argued that Obama was once a Muslim, and “may actually still be.” In 2011, he floated the idea that the manifesto of Anders Breivik, who carried out terrorist attacks in Norway that year, was a “false flag operation” intended to “suppress criticism” of Sharia. And in mid-2012, he stoked controversy over the Muslim Brotherhood, arguing falsely that the group had “infiltrated” the American government.
Gaffney once suggested that the Obama administration’s new missile defense logo was evidence that the president had “submitted” to Islamic law. (He also said the same of David Petraeus and Grover Norquist). The New York Times has highlighted his relationship with David Yerushalmi, the attorney for the designated anti-Muslim hate group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, and the architect of anti-Sharia legislation that has passed in eight states.
Another conference speaker is John Guandolo, a former FBI agent who believes CIA Director John Brennan is a secret Muslim working for Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood. Guandolo, who resigned from the FBI to avoid questioning about his involvement in a sex scandal, has been quoted saying American Muslims “do not have a First Amendment right to do anything.”
The local sponsor for the event is First Principles, which is led by Karen Testerman, the founder and former executive director of Cornerstone Policy Research who ran for governor in 2010 and the U.S. Senate in 2014.
Testerman has championed the adoption of the anti-Sharia “American Laws for American Courts” legislation proposed by Yerushalmi. When the Republican National Convention added a plank supporting anti-Sharia legislation to its platform in 2012, Testerman wrote, “That’s good news for freedom—and bad news for the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Calls to ‘repudiate the haters’
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has asked the Republican presidential candidates to boycott the event. “We are seeing the attempted mainstreaming of anti-Muslim hate and bigotry in the 2016 Republican presidential primary by Islamophobic hate groups and by the desperate candidates who seek their endorsement,” warned CAIR government affairs manager Robert McCaw.
In an open letter to Sen. Kelly Ayotte published in the Concord Monitor and Portsmouth Herald, Exeter writer and photographer Robert Azzi called on the state’s highest ranking Republican to ‘repudiate the haters:’
Today, over six years after Barack Obama became president, there are Bedford “summit” attendees who still believe that Barack Obama, CIA Director John Brennan and even Grover Norquist are Muslims. There are those who believe, as one of the invitees, Jerry Boykin, said, “Our God is greater than their God.” Those voices don’t represent my America nor do I believe it’s your America. While we can be partisan and loyal to our parties and political philosophies, we have a greater responsibility to be loyal to our Constitution – and to Truth. Loyal to a country where “All men are created equal.” […]
Please repudiate the haters, Senator, who cross New Hampshire borders trying to sow dissent and disharmony. Reject those who would divide us.