Last night, we posted in CD7 GOP chair distributes Central Minnesota Tea Party email invitation to Brigitte Gabriel event that tea party organizer Nancy Judd had noted in an email that was forwarded to area Republicans:
I know we would do better, but it has been requested that we not put this event in newspapers or put up flyers - any advertising like that will be done by Brigitte's organization if they choose to do so. I have contacted a few law enforcement agencies, but if you have email addresses for me, I will send a personal invitation to those in your areas. All law enforcement showing their badges at the door get in free - we want them educated! [emphasis added]
Today, the executive director of the Committee on American-Islamic Relations--Minnesota (CAIR-MN) Lori Sayora sent us an email about her group's follow-up on that offer:
CAIR-MN contacted 20 police departments near Little Falls today and asked them to make an informed decision on an invitation to an event featuring anti-Muslim activist Brigette Gabriel. CAIR-MN has received a positive response and assurance from law enforcement that they will not attend the anti-Muslim event.
In the July 29, 2013 letter, CAIR-MN wrote:
“As your police department would not, and should not, get trained by a racist or an anti-Semitic speaker, we kindly request that you apply the same standard to an anti-Muslim speaker.”
“Terrorism is a real threat to our nation and law enforcement needs to be educated about that threat. However, law enforcement and other agencies must look at the credentials and backgrounds of purported ‘experts’ before allowing their officers to be trained by them.”
CAIR-MN also distributed an “Islamophobia Backgrounder” on Gabriel and other pertinent information to law enforcement. ...
The organization also sent out a separate press release, CAIR-MN Asks GOP to Repudiate Invite to Talk by Anti-Muslim Speaker:
(MINNEAPOLIS, MN, 7/29/13 -- The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) today called on Republican leaders in that state to repudiate a GOP official who is promoting an event tonight featuring the leader of an anti-Muslim hate group.
Seventh District GOP Congressional Chair Craig Bishop distributed an email invitation to a talk at a Little Falls, Minn., high school by "Brigitte Gabriel," head of the hate group ACT! for America. In the email, sent using Bishop’s official 7th District GOP email address, he stated: “This is a must to attend.”
SEE: GOP Chair Distributes Central Minnesota Tea Party Email Invitation to Anti-Muslim Event
ACT! for America leader Hanah Kahwagi Tudor, who goes by the pseudonym "Brigitte Gabriel," has said Arabs have “no soul” and that Islam is the “real enemy.” The Southern Poverty Law Center lists her as one of the “Anti-Islam Inner Circle.” The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) says Gabriel’s beliefs are extreme, while the New York Times described her as an "Islamophobe.”
CAIR Islamophobia Backgrounder: ACT! for America and 'Brigitte Gabriel'
“The perceived endorsement by a Republican official of hate speech sends the message that the Minnesota GOP is hostile to minority voters,” said CAIR-MN Executive Director Lori Saroya. “We urge state Republican Party officials to repudiate this invitation to religious hatred and to instead promote mutual respect and positive civic participation by voters of all faiths and backgrounds.” . . .
There's more, mostly a digest of earlier press releases and coverage.
St. Cloud Times Editor: CMTP should "schedule CAIR-MN as their next featured speaker"
In his editor's column on Saturday in the St. Cloud Times, Logic wrong on tea party's speaker, Randy Krebs wrote:
I’m a firm believer that public places are just that — public. They should be available to everyone. I also believe that what your message says generally trumps the importance of where it is delivered, especially in an era of 24/7 media coverage and with everyone seemingly armed with a smartphone.
Those beliefs are why I’m disappointed in — and disagree with — CAIR-MN’s effort to force the Central Minnesota Tea Party Patriots from renting a public space Monday where it can host a nationally known activist with whom CAIR-MN disagrees. . . .
And concluded with a twist:
Now before you start reading between these lines, please know that based on what I have read about Gabriel, I see her tactics as causing more problems than she solves. Look no further than her two New York Times best-sellers, “Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America” and “They Must Be Stopped: Why we must defeat radical Islam and how we can do it.”Similarly, I question exactly what these Tea Party Patriots are trying to accomplish.
Of course, they could answer that question for me — and you — by doing one simple thing: After hearing from Gabriel, schedule CAIR-MN as their next featured speaker at their next meeting in the Little Falls high school.
Again, isn’t exposure to all sides of an issue what education is all about?
Curiously, despite Judd's claims in her email that no press releases will be sent out by the Tea Party, the Morrison County Record posted a press release that included her contact information online on July 28,2013 under the headline, Brigitte Gabriel to speak at LFCHS Monday.
While the New York Times may have called her "one of the most visible personalities on a circuit of self-appointed terrorism detectors," the press release in the Morrison County Record claims that she's "a leading global Islamic terrorism expert."
At least that's something. On Facebook, organizer Nancy Judd called her "the leading expert on global Islamic Terrorism."
Perhaps after this dog-and-pony show is over, the Central Minnesota Tea Party Patriots will go back to hating on conservation grazing as an Agenda 21 one-world government plot.Photo: CAIR-MN executive director Lori Saroya, via St. Katherine University's website. Saroya received the college's alumnae association's 2011 Rising Star Award that "recognizes a recent graduate who demonstrates vision and compassion, action and insight necessary to rise to significant levels of achievement in the future. Asma Lori Saroya SP’07 received the award for her extensive advocacy work that embodies social justice values."
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