Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is preparing his controversial hearings into the “radicalization of the American Muslim community and homegrown terrorism,” and he wants to make one thing clear: he’s not anti-Muslim. In an interview with the National Review this week, King said, “I do not want anything said at my hearing that could justify someone throwing a brick at a mosque. … I’ll be managing the hearing, so the responsibility is mine, to make sure there is no kind of religious bias or hostility toward Muslims.”
That’s surely a noble goal, but clearly contradicts many of King’s previous statements on Islam. He has said that 80 percent of American mosques are controlled by “radical imams,” and that in fact there are “too many mosques in this country.” King also said in 2004 that Muslims are “an enemy living amongst us.” His upcoming hearings originally featured a witness who believes “Islam is a cult,” though he later pulled her from the schedule.
This contradiction between King’s longstanding animus for Islam and his stated goal of fair hearings is evident even in the aforementioned National Review interview. While King claims to be wary of stirring up Islamophobia, he at the same time seems to establish a different standard of guilt for all Muslims:
“It is not enough for
to say that they denounce all terrorism, that they denounce all violence,” King says. “They have to be much more aggressive. I don’t think they fully realize that. They worry that if they came out and highlighted their opposition to Islamic terrorism, it would focus too much attention on the Muslim community, reminding people that these terrorists are Muslims. So they don’t deal with it in an open way.” <...>
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/15/king-attacks-muslims/
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