You may have missed a recent kerfuffle on social media: Tennessee congressman Andy Ogles declared “Muslims don’t belong in American society” in a post on X. He also declared, “Pluralism is a lie.” Several religious groups condemned the statement, as did U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. He replied on X, “Andy Ogles is a malignant clown and pathological liar who has fabricated his whole life story. Disgusting Islamophobes like you do not belong in Congress or in civilized society.”
Such statements are not new from Ogles. Zohran Mamdani last year won the Democratic Party nomination for mayor of New York. Mamdani, a Muslim and naturalized U.S. citizen, went on to win and become mayor. Ogles also posted a blurb on X, calling Mamdani “little muhammad” and an “antisemitic, socialist, communist” who should be denaturalized and deported based on his use of rap lyrics that suggest support for Hamas.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, instead of criticizing Ogles, shifted to a bizarre extrapolation on Sharia law as an imposition in conflict with the Constitution. Sharia law derives from the Quran, the sayings of Muhammad and Muslim traditions in some places. It is a set of principles including marriage, finance, and religious rituals. Of course, neither it nor any other religious rules have any standing over the U.S. Constitution, or any state or federal laws…