{"id":34130,"date":"2018-12-10T00:39:38","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T00:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=34130"},"modified":"2018-12-10T00:43:01","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T00:43:01","slug":"hows-this-for-religious-bigotry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=34130","title":{"rendered":"How’s this for religious bigotry?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To think that Texas’s third-largest county is home to a cabal of religious bigots who want to oust a local Republican Party vice chairman because — get ready for it — he’s a Muslim!<\/p>\n

Ye gads, this story disgusts me.<\/p>\n

At issue is the faith practiced by Shahid Shafi, a Southlake trauma surgeon. He ran twice for the Southlake City Council and was elected on his second try. He was informed by friends that as a Muslim, he would have difficulty being elected to any office in Texas in this post 9\/11 era.<\/p>\n

That didn’t dissuade him. So he ran and won eventually.<\/p>\n

Now he’s vice chair of the Tarrant County<\/strong> GOP. But wait! He barely had taken office when a local Republican raised a phony alarm. A precinct chairwoman, Dorrie O’Brien, urged the county’s GOP chair, Darl Easton, to pull Shafi out of the vice chair’s office.<\/p>\n

The bigot said, without any evidence, that Shafi believes in Sharia law and that he’s a closet terrorist.<\/p>\n

Good grief!<\/p>\n

I feel the need to remind everyone yet again that the U.S. Constitution is unambiguous about this point: There shall be “no religious test” applied for anyone seeking elected office in the United States of America. It’s written in Article VI, Clause 3 of the nation’s founding government document. Yep, that includes city council member and political party leadership.<\/p>\n

The bigoted move has drawn immediate condemnation from some high-profile Republicans, such as Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush and lame-duck Texas House Speaker Joe Straus. The Texas GOP Executive Committee has approved a resolution endorsing religious freedom in a move to stop the xenophobia that might erupt if the Tarrant County removal motion is allowed to proceed.<\/p>\n

Here is how the Texas Tribune reports it<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, this story sickens me. It should sicken anyone who has an understanding of what the Constitution says about religion in politics.<\/p>\n

Then there’s the issue of innuendo and unfounded accusation, which has become one of the dubious trademarks of the nation’s top Republican, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Disgusting.<\/p>\n\n

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To think that Texas’s third-largest county is home to a cabal of religious bigots who want to oust a local Republican Party vice chairman because — get ready for it — he’s a Muslim! Ye gads, this story disgusts me. At issue is the faith practiced by Shahid Shafi, a Southlake trauma surgeon. He ran … Continue reading How’s this for religious bigotry?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14,18],"tags":[2349,5493,8202,4247,8200,5043,8201],"class_list":["post-34130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-political-news","category-state-news","tag-islam","tag-muslim","tag-no-religious-test-clause","tag-sharia-law","tag-tarrant-county-gop","tag-us-constitution","tag-xenophobia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34130"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34133,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34130\/revisions\/34133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}