I'll have more on Newt Gingrich's mainstreaming of Islamophobia later, but for now I want to point out one example of mangled context that Matt Duss left out of his thorough response:
Last month, police in Dearborn, Mich., which has a large Muslim population, arrested Christian missionaries for handing out copies of the Gospel of St. John on charges of “disturbing the peace.” They were doing so on a public street outside an Arab festival in a way that is completely permissible by law, but, of course, forbidden by sharia's rules on proselytizing. This is a clear case of freedom of speech and the exercise of religious freedom being sacrificed in deference to sharia's intolerance against the preaching of religions other than Islam.
So now Dearborn cops are enforcing Sharia? Sounds frightening. Except ... it wasn't Muslims who called the police:
Police said they received a complaint from a Christian volunteer working at the festival June 18 who said members of Acts 17 Apologetics were harassing patrons and a large crowd was gathering.
The group's actions, police said, were a public safety issue because they caused a large number of people to gather in a small space. Police said members of the group were arrested for failing to obey commands of the police.
I don't like the idea of police arresting anyone for not "obeying the commands of the police." But Gingrich seems to have left out the part of the story that doesn't support his theory that the Muslim population of Michigan is now enforcing Sharia law through public institutions -- or the idea that the event itself was somehow hostile to Christians, since obviously there were Christians present.
