Can we stop associating an entire religion with terrorism?
That's basically the gist of what was discussed Tuesday night on Fox News' "The Kelly File." Megyn Kelly brought on Katrina Pearson, a spokeswoman for Donald Trump, and Saba Ahmed, president and founder of the Republican Muslim Coalition, to discuss Trump's comments that the U.S. should shut down all mosques after the Paris attacks last week.
Kelly opened the discussion by talking about our First Amendment rights. “We have freedom of speech, we have freedom of religion," she said. "And we’re opening up a very dangerous door if we get the government getting to go into a religious institution and decide what amounts to hate speech.”
Pearson then passionately listed followers of the Islamic faith who were responsible for violence in the past, in an attempt to prove her point that all Muslims are capable of and responsible for such behavior. (That logic would suggest that all Catholic churches should've been shut down after the Boston Globe investigation of church sex abuse in 2002, which found thousands of people who were assaulted by members of the clergy.)
After Kelly mentioned the "hotbed" of political activity that seemingly goes on in mosques, Ahmed, who remained incredibly poised the entire time, simply responded: “Megyn, we go to the mosque to pray.”
Ahmed told The Huffington Post that she "was supposed to wear a purple scarf," but changed her mind "at the very last minute" after hearing a guest on an earlier segment make anti-Islamic comments while in the Fox News makeup room.
"I just wanted to show that American Muslims are patriotic as well," she said, adding that the fact that she had to defend her constitutional rights during the segment was "absurd."
"These are fundamental rights," she said, "For us to be debating about this... is absolutely ridiculous."
Asked what advice she has for Muslim-American children growing up in 2015, she said, "Be proud to be Muslim Americans. Be proud of your faith. Be proud of your country."
Rock your red, white and blue, Saba. You more than deserve to.
H/T Jezebel
Also on HuffPost:
