Gingrich Uses Nice Tragedy To Fan Muslim Hatred

The body of a young victim in Nice

A trip to my local after work last evening to cool off with a drink and unwind morphed into a sobering experience when I received a news alert on my iPhone via the New York Times about the horrific act of terror that took place in Nice, France.

I asked the bartender to switch one of the flat screen TVs mounted on the wall over the bar from the golf highlights no one was really paying attention to over to CNN so we could all watch the first reports of  yet more innocent people being killed.

The lighthearted conversation was quickly replaced by a sour mood as the gathered patrons began to express frustration and anger over the actions of those who would use terror to take the lives of innocent strangers using barbaric acts meant to shock and seize the attention of global media.

Once again this latest mass killing was carefully and diabolically timed to dominate headlines heading into a summer holiday weekend; and we're left to ponder the aftermath.

At least 84 people (including 10 children) reported killed, including a father and son from Texas, and more than two hundred injured; including at least three students from UCLA.

What makes this heinous act even worse are the deplorable attempts by prominent Republicans and conservative media figures to use this tragedy to once again vilify all Muslim refugees.

Gingrich calls for Muslim "tests"

As you've likely heard, former House Speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gringrich is making headlines for comments he made during a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity in which he suggested that America needs to begin implementing some kind of religious litmus test for all people of Muslim faith to determine if they profess a belief in Sharia Law.

A test? How would that even work?


According to estimates by the Pew Research Center, there were approximately 3.3 million Muslim-Americans in this country as of 2015; the very idea that the U.S. is somehow going to "test" the beliefs of of more than 3 millions American citizens is ludicrous.

And as President Obama said in a statement, Gingrich's "test" idea is "repugnant" to the very ideals of the Constitutional protections afforded to all citizens; including the freedom of religion and the freedom of expression.

Did Gingrich call for "testing" Christians after 20-year-old Adam Lanza gunned down 20 people in Sandy Hook Elementary back in 2012?

I certainly can't recall conservatives calling for a Christian "test" after 21-year-old Dylan Roof shot and killed nine people at a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17 last year.

Orlando shooter Omar Mateen - Born in New York

As Justin Salhani observed this morning in an article on ThinkProgress.org, none of the perpetrators of the recent string of high profile terrorist acts in France and Belgium were Muslim refugees; they were legal citizens of those respective countries.

Just consider the horrific mas killings we've seen across the United States recently, including in Charleston, Orlando, San Bernadino and most recently in Dallas.

They were all committed by unbalanced American psychopaths who had easy access to guns - they were all Americans born right here in America.

None of them were Muslim refugees, in fact there's no evidence any Muslim refugee has been arrested for plotting to kill Americans at all - in fact as Vox.com reported, 80% of terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11 have been committed by Americans.

Governments around the world, not just in American and Europe, have enough to deal with to try and figure out a practical and effective long-term strategy to deal with the global threat posed by people who've been radicalized by groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda and Boko Haram that pervert the Koran to justify barbaric acts of violence and cruelty.

Newt Gingrich calling for the establishment of some kind of thought police in America is not the solution, and creating some kind of "American Taliban" is anathema to the principles on which this country was founded.