Rollins laid a brass-knuckle smackdown, or more accurately, reprimanded Rep. Bachmann like a wayward schoolgirl. To Fox News. Via TPM:
“I am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts, but this is downright vicious and reaches the late Sen. Joe McCarthy level,” Rollins wrote in Fox News.
Here are the fireworks:
“As a member of Congress, with a seat on the House Intelligence Committee, Mrs. Bachmann you know better,” said Rollins. “Shame on you, Michele! You should stand on the floor of the House and apologize to Huma Abedin and to Secretary Clinton and to the millions of hard-working, loyal Muslim Americans for your wild and unsubstantiated charges. As a devoted Christian, you need to ask forgiveness for this grievous lack of judgment and reckless behavior.”
Until folks on the right start personally shaming the vicious purveyors of fascist hate who live and thrive amongst them, the GOP will remain a shrinking white nationalist cesspool. John McCain made a good start (without naming names), but who else will follow him? Can the party truly lance the boil?
The problem is much bigger than Michele Bachmann or Louie Gohmert.
Republicans in Tennessee are revolting against their own governor over the hiring of a superb Muslim woman to state government. The teahadists’ message is clear: purge the Muslims and the gays and their Democratic sympathizers.
And the Justice Department just sued Rutherford County, Tenn., to allow the Murfreesboro Islamic Center to open:
Attorneys for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro are beginning their arguments in Nashville's federal court, hoping to get the congregation into its new mosque by sundown tomorrow -- the start of the holy month of Ramadan.
At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it’s suing Rutherford County, claiming violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.
The county refused to issue an occupancy certificate for a new Islamic center last month in compliance with a state chancery court ruling. At issue was the county's notice for a land-use hearing on the mosque two years ago. The lawsuit claims the chancery court held the county to a higher standard on for notice on the mosque than it would other religious groups.
Breaking--the Becket Fund representing the Islamic Center and the DOJ just scored a victory for
real religious freedom this afternoon:
A federal judge in Nashville has ruled a Murfreesboro mosque can open for Ramadan.
Judge Todd Campbell also said the mosque must go through the inspection process like any other new building.
…
“Our nation was founded on bedrock principles of religious liberty. The Department of Justice will continue to vigorously enforce civil rights laws that protect religious freedom,” said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, said in a media release. “When a faith community follows the rules, as the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro has done in seeking to construct its place of worship, it is impermissible to change the rules in a discriminatory way that prevents people of faith from exercising their fundamental right to worship.”
Keeping the Holder/Perez Justice Department in place is one more reason why Barack Obama's re-election is essential.
Update:
Statement from the Becket Fund (same link as above):
“No congregation should have its right of religious liberty curtailed solely because some of its neighbors disapprove of its religious beliefs,” said Luke Goodrich, deputy general counsel at the Becket Fund. “No religion is an island. When the rights of one faith are abridged, the rights of all faiths are threatened. All faiths have the right to worship God in freedom and in peace.”