Commentary

Mark Harmon

May 4, 20264:59 am

 Several Tennessee elected officials are among those sowing anti-Muslim rhetoric. (Photo: Getty Images)region. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

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.

Second Congressional District Rep. Tim Burchett of Knoxville was more than willing to join the nonsense, signing on as cosponsor to Texas U.S. Rep. Chip Roy’s bill, The Preserving a Sharia-Free America Act. Burchett even called upon the House Intelligence committee to subpoena and release the immigration records of Congressman Ilhan Omar, a Muslim woman critical of the Trump Administration.

The war with Iran has set off a wave of anti-Muslim bigoted statements. U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, a Florida Republican, declared, “We need more Islamophobia, not less. Fear of Islam is rational.” Tommy Tuberville, U.S. Senator from Alabama (and gubernatorial candidate), paired 9/11 images with Mamdani, and bloviated, “The enemy is inside the gate.”

Knox  County Commissioner Andy Fox wants to pile on. He recently agreed to delay until late May his plan to discuss in a meeting why he believes Islam is incompatible with U.S. culture and society, but he rejected calls to put the item outside the regular meeting in a workshop.

He wrote on the commission’s online public forum, “In light of the many terrorist acts committed by muslims across America and in other parts of the world, we need to discuss whether a threat exists — I do believe a threat exists — and what to do about such a threat. The last thing we should do is bury our heads in the sand and pretend that nothing is happening. Given the delay, I may bring some legislative items forward as part of this presentation.”

Fox earlier this year used a meeting to pontificate on how anti-immigrant legislation is not only compatible with Christianity, but also called for by it.

One perfect response to Fox came from Knoxville’s Yassin Terou, a Syrian Muslim and owner of the highly-praised Yassin’s Falafel House. He wrote in a public Facebook post, “This kind of framing does not help solve problems; instead, it risks deepening divisions within the community. The responsibility of any legislative body is to promote safety and unity, not to create fear based on generalizations. If the goal is to protect the community, then the discussion should remain factual, precise, and inclusive of all forms of violence without exception or bias.”

Terou  added, “Respecting religious diversity is not a political slogan; it is a core American value that has allowed this country to become a place where people of all faiths Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others can contribute to society as neighbors, coworkers, and citizens. When that principle is weakened, the entire fabric of civic trust is weakened with it.”

Let’s  be blunt about this. There are roughly two billion Muslims worldwide, one in four people on this globe. It makes as little sense to generalize about them as it does to generalize about the roughly 2.6 billion global Christians. Tennessee has an estimated 40,000 Muslims, less than one percent of the overall population. They deserve all of us to stand up to the xenophobic blurts coming from our elected officials.

source https://tennesseelookout.com/2026/05/04/tennessee-lawmakers-push-hatred-of-muslims/