A prominent member of the Tea Party movement is defending a statement he made about the Muslim representative of Minnesota’s 5th District.
On Saturday, Judson Phillips, who heads the Tea Party Nation, published a column suggesting Representative Keith Ellison is unfit to serve because he is Muslim.
“I am not going to apologize because I’m bothered by a religion that says kill the infidel, especially when I am the infidel,” Phillips said on the Tea Party Nation website Tuesday.
“If you read the Koran, the Koran in no uncertain terms says some wonderful things like, ‘Kill the infidels,'” said Phillips. “It says it on more than one occasion. I happen to be the infidel. I have a real problem with people who want to kill me just because I’m the infidel.”
“A majority of Tea Party members, I suspect, are not fans of Islam,” he added.
“The Tea Party has featured congressional candidates that dress up as a Nazi, have ties to a criminal biker gang, have called for the violent overthrow of government, and now the leadership is disgracefully telling voters to vote against someone solely on the basis of their religion,” a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a statement. “The American people will reject this reckless Right Wing extremism that has unfortunately been embraced by the Republican Party.”
See also “Tea Party Nation founder: I have a real problem with Islam”, Salon, 27 October 2010