Sunday’s New York Times religion correspondent Liam Stack became a new Times reporter who devalued what would have been a historic achievement of a minority group politician due to the politician being a conservative. “Oz Could be the First Muslim U.S. Some Muslim Americans are ambivalent, Senator
A Times reporter is suspicious that a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, Dr. Mehmet Oz (a Times reporter) doesn’t push or emphasize their religious beliefs. After years of shaming the dangerous theocratic tendencies that the Christian Right has displayed, this is a welcome change.
Pennsylvania could elect Dr. Mehmet Oz to the Senate in just a few days. This would make him the first Muslim senator in the country.
With an eye on his history, Muslims in the State have invited him to events at mosques. They waited for him talk about how his faith has influenced his life. He once said to an interviewer that he adhered to the mystical Sufi Islam of whirling dervishes. They wondered if he would notice the significance of a Muslim being elected to such a high-ranking national office.
He hasn’t done any of these things.
….
Dr. Oz’s political and personal identities make him an unlikely candidate for the role as a history-making, barrier-breaking Muslim public figure.
In other words, he is a Republican.
He describes himself as a secular Muslim and raised his four children in the Christian faith of his wife. He rarely discusses his religious beliefs publicly. He is a Republican, which is unusual among American Muslims. Some of his rare remarks about Islam, including a warning about Shariah law being applied in the United States, which has never been proposed by any group [?] His rare comments about Islam — including a warning about Shariah law in the United States, which no group has ever proposed [?]] — were viewed by fellow Muslims to be Islamophobic signaling.
In Stack’s Sunday piece, a familiar bogeyman rose.
However, Dr. Oz’s alienation from many Muslims stems from Donald J. Trump’s vocal backing. He once stated that he would “strongly contemplate” closing American mosques. Trump also said to an interviewer that he believed Islam hates America and banned travel from several predominantly Muslim countries to the United States.
In other words, it is possible that the first Muslim senator was a man whose political rise could be attributed to a figure who spread Islamophobia wider than any other American leader.
Oz’s lackluster firebrand religiosity was used by Stack to criticize the Republican Party en masse, Trump in particular, and blatantly fawning about a controversial Muslim Democratic figure.
American Muslims have been deeply disengaged from the Republican Party ever since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. This led to years and years of government surveillance and racial profiling, made possible by the Patriot Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush (a Republican). This estrangement grew to be severe under the Trump administration.
She said that Dr. Oz has not caused the same excitement in the community as Keith Ellison, a Democrat who was elected the first Muslim Congressman in 2007. He visited mosques all over the country, was sworn in to office on the Quran, and served as an eloquent spokesperson for American Muslims, Ms. Dalia Mogahed stated.
Ellison, the Attorney General of Minnesota, has been subject to sexual harassment allegations and links to Lewis Farrakhan, an anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader, which Stack conveniently forgot to mention.
Stack is known for manipulating a study on religion and education around the world into a mocking headline: “Christians in U.S. are Less Educated Than Religion Minorities, Report Says.”
