Would liberals mind living next to mosques?
Hamtramck, Michigan has a majority-Muslim city council, so businesses find it impossible to get a liquor license within 500 feet of a mosque. But what disturbs residents the most are the calls to prayers, five times a day, starting at 6 AM.
Many longtime residents point to 2004 as the year they suspected that the town's culture had shifted irrevocably. It was then that the city council gave permission to al-Islah Islamic Center to broadcast its call to prayer from speakers atop its roof.... The mosque's leaders plan to put a minaret — a spire — on the building and use it to continue broadcasting a call to prayer five times a day.... several senior citizens living in an apartment complex complained about the volume of the 6 a.m. call to prayer from a nearby mosque.
Susan Dunn, who was on her fifth unsuccessful run for city council, raised the issue before the governing body. At one point as she spoke, a mosque close to Dunn's house began broadcasting the call to prayer. "You try reading a book in your back yard while your dog is barking to that," Dunn said, clearly exasperated.
And here is the inclusive message from the mosque leaders:
"The Polish people think we were invading them," said Masud Khan, one of the mosque's leaders, recalling that time in an interview earlier this month. "We were a big threat to their religion and culture. Now their days are gone."
It's not about diversity. It's about conquest.
Now, of course, some churches have bells that they ring. But they don't ring them at 6 AM. And they don't amplify them from speakers on the roof. And the ringing of bells is fundamentally different from the call to prayer, which, in and of itself, is a prayer. If you listen to one, you will hear someone wailing in Arabic. What has America become when we are forced to hear prayers, in a foreign language, while walking the streets of our home towns?
This is not what the founding fathers meant when they enacted the First Amendment. Americans should not be forced to listen to prayers of other religions. This is religious oppression. If a church were doing this, liberals would be up and arms. But because mosques are doing this, liberals are silent.
I wonder if Hillary Clinton, who has called for the U.S. to admit 65,000 Syrian refugees, would enjoy living next to a mosque, hearing the call to prayer five times a day. I wonder if President Obama would enjoy being woken up at 6 AM with a call to prayer. I wonder if Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer would enjoy hearing wailing in Arabic at 100 decibels as they walked through their hometowns.
I suspect not. But because this is Islam, everyone is silent.
Most American Muslims are not terrorists. But some American Muslims are trying to push their culture on us in an oppressive way that no other religion has ever been permitted to. Besides the security concerns, it's something else we need to think about when admitting more Muslims into the country.
This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.