By Ghita El Hafidi
By Ghita El Hafidi
Rabat – United States Republican politician and former judge Roy Moore has taken public Islamophobia in the country to new levels, telling voters that Islam is a “false religion.”
Former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice, Roy Moore, currently running to the state’s senate seat, made the comment during a meeting of the Republican club in Gardendale, Alabama last Tuesday, reports HuffPost.
The Republican’s statement, captured in a video published on his Facebook page, followed a question by a woman at the North Jefferson Country meeting about Sharia law.
“I’ve seen a lot in the news about Sharia law, and Muslims demanding break times to do their prayers and wanting to have their laws oversee our laws,” says the woman, referring to the conspiracy theory that implies that Islamic law is a threat to the US judicial system. “I just wonder how you plan to deal with that.”
“False religions like Islam,” alleges Moore in his reply, “that teach you to worship this way, are completely opposite with what our First Amendment stands for.”
The First Amendment of the US constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
According to members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Moore’s extremist stance on Islam at the meeting was not surprising.
“Moore had a long history of extremist attitudes,” affirmed Corey Saylor, a spokesman for (CAIR). “It is more disappointing that his statement went unchallenged in the room.”
Many Americans fear that Sharia law is “taking over,” despite the statistics showing that Muslims make up roughly 1 percent of the US population, just 3.3 million.
Moore is nationally known for having been removed twice from the bench as an Alabama state judge after making two “mistakes.” First, he banned same-sex marriage while US Supreme Court legalized it, and second, he refused to remove a monument of Ten Commandments installed at the Alabama courthouse.
Moore’s comments come as just one of many Islamophobic statements made publically by US politicians. In January, a number of people accused Linda Sarsour – a Muslim activist who was one of the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington – of turning the demonstration into a “secret” “Sharia march.”
