Former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich recently stated that “we should frankly test every person here who is of Muslim background and if they believe in Sharia law, they should be deported.” He added that anyone who simply visits any website favoring terrorist groups should be guilty of a felony and should go to jail. Although Gingrich is clearly an intellectual person and rose through the political ranks to ultimately serve as the Speaker of the House, his words (which have been widely embraced by numerous Fox News hosts) should send an alarming chill up the backs of those who believe in the U.S. Constitution and everything it stands for.
While he did say that he would welcome as a neighbor Muslims who refute Sharia, Newt’s latest statement is a thinly-veiled code to continue fueling anti-Muslim sentiments in our country. Can Newt, or anyone who applauds his opinion, even identify what Sharia law is? Do they know how it is typically applied in the modern world? Can they even explain how it could undermine our own local, state and federal laws?
I strongly believe in the principles espoused by our Founding Fathers and the fundamental values this nation stands for. While the Constitution originally included the appalling language of counting slaves as only three-fifths of a person, it is today an incredible document identifying the significant freedoms and liberties we enjoy here. These types of ideals are often what motivate people like myself to join the military and serve our country in a way that might bring these same ideals to other countries. While I am just one veteran and certainly do not represent anyone else, I find Newt’s latest comments dreadful for five reasons.
1. His comments reflect a mentality of discriminating against those who are “different.”
It is a sad fact that dating back to when European colonists landed on what is now the United States of America, the majority in our country systematically took incredible violent and inhumane actions against the “other.” Our federal government relocated as many as 100,000 Native Americans against their will to the West as a part of the Indian Removal Act. The most infamous example concerned the Cherokee, wherein we forced the removal of 16,000 Native Americans at bayonet point. They were not allowed time to gather their belongings, and thus started the march known as the Trail of Tears, in which 4,000 Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease on their way to the western lands. We later treated Chinese immigrants barbarically after their utility in building railroads during the gold rush dried up. And as we saw with the Japanese-Americans in California during World War II, the U.S. Government would not limit its racially discriminatory policies to “foreigners.” After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the U.S. Government instituted the internment of 127,000 people of Japanese heritage who lived on the Pacific Coast, a decision that was later validated by our Supreme Court. It is important to note that during World War II, no Japanese-American in the United States, Hawaii, or Alaska - citizen or immigrant - was ever convicted of espionage or sabotage.
Today we wildly celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and Irish-Americans proudly claim their heritage. Perhaps there is no more accepted group in America than those with Irish ancestry. But that certainly was not always the case. After the massive influx of Irish immigrants to New York during the late 1840s and 1850s, employment notices often included the language “No Irish Need Apply.” They were forced to live in cellars and shanties, partly because of poverty but also because they were considered bad for the neighborhood. These squalid living conditions bred sickness and early death – it was estimated that 80 percent of all infants born to Irish immigrants in New York City died. The Protestant majority in America viewed the Irish as unclean, immoral and dangerously in thrall to a bizarre religion – Catholicism.
Our discrimination against Catholics, however, predates Irish immigration. At first banned from the colonies, Catholics were grudgingly allowed entry but with severe civic restrictions, including exclusion from political power. It was claimed by mainstream Americans that Catholics were “destroying the culture of the United States” (sound familiar?). In fact, just like achieving racial integration in our schools required Supreme Court action, the 1925 Pierce v. Society of Sisters U.S. Supreme Court case allowed for Catholic schools by overturning an Oregon law mandating that all students attend public school. In 1844, mobs burned down Catholic churches and hunted down victims, and the growth of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century gave a new impetus to attacks on Catholics.
Our Protestant majority did not only discriminate against Catholics. In 1939 a poll found that only 39 percent of Americans felt that Jews should be treated like other people. An overwhelming 53 percent believed that “Jews are different and should be restricted” and ten percent believed that Jews should be deported. Several surveys taken from 1940 to 1946 even found that Jews were seen as a greater threat to the welfare of the United States than any other national, religious, or racial group.
Of course, throughout all of these incidents woven into the fabric of our country is the ultimate “othering” - the dehumanization of African Americans. Many states throughout the South just one generation ago fought tooth and nail against any sort of integration - the governor of Arkansas even called out the National Guard in 1957 to prevent black students from attending Central High School in Little Rock. Starting with slavery embedded into our very Constitution, black people today are still often judged differently than others merely because of the color their skin, as evidenced by numerous implicit bias studies and research.
2. Newt’s type of discriminatory and heavy-handed action is simply fear mongering and plays on ignorance related to Sharia law.
Many of those cheering Newt’s comments have never talked to a Muslim, have never researched how Sharia is used, and probably correlate Sharia law with stoning women. Of course, while this punishment does exist, it is an extreme measure, not unlike our Christian-majority country still embracing the death penalty while it is decried by the rest of Western civilization. As it happens, there is no common consensus on what Sharia law is, and most Sharia is practiced in interpersonal relationships, conflict resolution and banking.
I wonder if Newt and his followers know that the legal system of one of his most favored countries, our close ally Israel, officially endorses Sharia as a legal system? Newt stated that “Sharia is incompatible with Western civilization,” but certainly Israel is a critical component of Western civilization. Muslims make up 19 percent of Israel’s population and they have eight Sharia courts there. Does Benjamin Netanyahu have it all wrong? Ultimately, it seems that attempted bans against Sharia law are solutions in search of problems. Constitutional law expert at the University of North Carolina School of Law, Michael Gerhardt, said, “I simply cannot imagine any state court would recognize sharia to defeat a federal constitutional right.”
3. His remarks are offensive to the freedoms and liberties this country embraces.
We are different from ISIS and authoritarian governments in a lot of ways. Typically, these abusive organizations target the LGBT community and other minority groups who do not fit into their definition of “acceptable,” use violence and scare tactics to affect their policies, and often go to extreme measures to promote an ugly ideology while trying to control the most personal aspects of people’s lives. Unfortunately, imposing harsh punishments on members of a particular religious group for believing something, as Newt is suggesting, reflects a mindset far closer to totalitarianism than democracy. Of course, Newt’s latest position is equally invasive and actually quite consistent with Montana Republican state Rep David Moore’s proposed bill last year to ban yoga pants because they are “too provocative,” Indiana Governor (and now Donald Trump’s Vice Presidential pick) Mike Pence’s infamous Religious Freedom Restoration Act which allowed businesses to turn away gay customers and enabled corporations to deny insurance coverage to LBGT people, and myriad voter ID laws designed by Republican legislators to suppress political participation by students, low-income and minority voters who typically vote for Democratic candidates.
And here, Newt is not talking about terrorists who are practicing Sharia, but everyday people who simply believe in it (whatever that means). His suggested punishment is based purely on a person’s mindset. As a nation, we find it constitutionally acceptable for the most despicable and violent groups such as the KKK to assemble and parade when they want, for militia groups to publicly declare their opposition to our government and then stockpile weapons and ammunition and conduct training exercises, and after the Citizens United case for individuals to support politicians such as Newt with tens of millions of dollars in donations through super PACs. Yet, Newt is so worried about people believing in something that they should be rounded up and deported. Of course, he does not address what we should do if they are legal citizens and entitled to the same rights as everybody else.
4. Newt’s comments undermine our nation’s military.
Early in the war on terror after the attacks on 9/11, President George W. Bush made a number of statements related to why we were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said, “Our men and women are fighting to help democracy and peace and justice rise in a troubled and violent region ... Our men and women are fighting for the security of America and for the advance of freedom...”, that “Successful societies guarantee religious liberty - the right to serve and honor God without fear of persecution” and, “The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country. And we believe that freedom - the freedom we prize - is not for us alone. It is the right and the capacity of all mankind.” It was this type of language that motivated me, and many other American service members, to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I believe in freedom and liberty for all mankind, and did my part to help bring the option for a democratic government to a war-torn part of the world. But one thing we absolutely do not stand for in America is punishing people for what we believe they may be thinking. Our internment of Japanese-Americans was based on that exact same process and is one of the lowest points in our history. McCarthyism is not far removed from this same mindset, and President Harry S. Truman denounced the House Un-American Activities Committee (an organization Newt advocates that we revive today) as “the most un-American thing in the country today.”
5. His comments just do not make any sense.
Let’s actually start with his second assertion here, that anyone who visits a terrorist website should be guilty of a felony and go to jail. Can we agree how absurd this is, both from a practical standpoint and from a constitutional perspective? Under this suggestion, anyone in law enforcement who visits such a website to learn more about that group should go to jail. Any terrorism expert researching a book to educate the rest of us should go to jail. And any one of us who simply wants to see what these groups are saying to their followers should all go to jail. And is it really “American” for our government representatives to decide which websites we can visit?
And now for Newt’s main point, that basically we should round up everyone of Muslim background (whatever that means) and somehow determine if they believe in Sharia law. And then of course deport them. Are we to assume that once we identify “everyone of Muslim background,” that we just call them on the phone and ask them if they believe in Sharia law? Do we send them all down to Guantanamo and water board them to get the answers? Do we add to the size of our existing government and create another agency to oversee all of this? And what does “believe in Sharia law” really mean? We all know that it exists, just like any other legal system, so believing in it is completely ambiguous.
It is impossible to understand what Newt is actually suggesting. Does believing in it mean understanding that Sharia is the basis of law for a handful of our military allies? Does believing in it mean acknowledging that Sharia is used as a council system in the United Kingdom? Does believing in it include Muslims feeling that Sharia has been abused by radical groups like ISIS? The whole suggestion is preposterous, and insulting to anyone who takes domestic and foreign policy, community integration and civil liberties seriously.
Muslims are the latest target of Gingrich and others, who fail to differentiate the vast majority of Muslims, especially in America, from the violent terrorists like the members of ISIS. Lumping entire groups of individuals into one group makes it far easier to debase them. Unfortunately, American history demonstrates, beginning with the Alien and Sedition Acts, to the 1850s when the Know Nothing Party attacked Catholics, Jews, refugees and foreigners, and to the Japanese internments, that when a democratic government seeks a balance between security and liberty, targeting immigrants from a nation or ethnic group defined as the enemy produces little public resistance. In all of these instances, the individual members are all considered to be identical representatives of a monolithic group that is “un-American” and loyal to something that is a threat to America.
When Army veteran Timothy McVeigh conducted the horrendous Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and more recently when the Army veteran Dallas sniper killed several police officers and the Marine veteran in Baton Rouge did the same thing, we did not lump all veterans together. We viewed these criminals as individual actors. After the Charleston church massacre, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the mass shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, CO, or even the Columbine High School massacre, nobody suggested that their repulsive actions were due to their “whiteness” or any other personal identification.
Comments like Gingrich’s quickly try to connect the imaginary dots between Muslims in America, Sharia law and terrorist activities, which is disingenuous at best and dangerously harmful to our nation at worst. Of course, he made these comments right after Donald Trump picked Indiana Governor Mike Pence over him as his vice presidential running mate, and perhaps Gingrich is now angling for a Cabinet position in a Trump administration.
Regardless, his reckless language not only ignores the religious freedom and other basic civil liberties that we value so highly in this country, but also perpetuates the fear mongering against the “other” that we have, regrettably, done so too many times in our past. True leaders do not pander and prey upon people’s fears and prejudices - they thoughtfully engage challenges with calm hearts, rationale minds, and above all else, integrity.
Justin Constantine is an inspirational speaker, leadership consultant, entrepreneur and a TED speaker who serves as a liaison between the military and corporate communities. He is the author of the new book “My Battlefield, Your Office,” now available on Amazon. A Presidential Leadership Scholar, Justin also a fellow with the Truman National Security Project. He sits on the board of directors of several national nonprofits, and co-founded the Veteran Success Resource Group. Justin received a Purple Heart for his service in Iraq with the U.S. Marine Corps. To learn more, visit:www.justinconstantine.com. His comments here only reflect his personal views, and not those of any organizations he works with.