ReligionDispatches.org

Vision America's Rick Scarborough, a "Christian nation" warrior, Mike Huckabee endorser, and author of the book Liberalism Kills Kids, has just weighed in with a statement on the Fort Hood shootings:

We know that Dr. Hasan is a devout Muslim who once told a fellow officer that "Muslims have a right to stand up against the U.S. military." Clearly, yesterday's rampage was not motivated by love. Given Hasan's worldview, it's probable that he was motivated in part by an animus toward Christians and Jews. Assuming that murder charges are brought against him, will Hasan also be charged with a hate crime?

Justin Elliott reports at TPM on how the author of Muslim Mafia, the WorldNetDaily-produced screed about an alleged infiltration of Capitol Hill by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is claiming that alleged Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan is taking orders from CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.

That sort of fifth column conspiracy theory -- that Muslim extremists bent on replacing the Constitution with sharia law are frighteningly in our midst -- is the bread and butter of a cottage industry of Islamophobia found in some conservative and religious right circles.

This morning, the lead headline on the Washington Post's web site read: "Hazy, contradictory picture of suspect emerges." That might be due to the rampant speculation and fact-free "reporting" that has dominated coverage of yesterday's tragedy at Fort Hood.

Maj. Nidal M. Hasan allegedly went on yesterday's shooting rampage that killed 13 and injured more than 30 more at the Army base in Texas. He is an Army psychiatrist born in the northern Virginia suburbs and is described in some accounts as a "devout Muslim." But even before that detail emerged, the internet was aflame with speculation -- based on Hasan's name, of course -- that the shootings had something to do with Hasan's religion.

Of course that leads many to jump to conclusions: did religion cause him to pull the trigger? Is a terrorist in our midst?

Last week, Rev. Bernice King, youngest daughter of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King was named the 7th president of the organization her father founded in 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Since Martin King’s assassination in 1968, the organization, largely built around King’s own personal charisma, ingenious imagination and unflappable moral courage, has struggled to find its way.

Sure it has had its high moments. The community violence prevention programs under the ever-affable Joseph Lowery come to mind. Yet the SCLC has engaged in a game of musical chairs at the presidential level over the past decade (including Martin Luther King III’s conflict-laden stint as president), that has made the organization about as relevant as a Lou Rawls 8-track tape.  

Once again, the civil rights of a minority of U.S. citizens has been put to a popular vote, and once again, that hated and feared minority has been told to either get to the back of the bus, or start walking — to Canada.

Voters in the state of Maine, this week, turned out to repeal a legislative measure, signed into law by the governor, extending marriage equality to gay and lesbian U.S. citizens living in that state. Once again, the traditional moralists, with their big money, big mouths, and big ideas that allowing gays to marry will cause the apocalypse, have triumphed in scaring enough people to vote against their fellow human beings.