"There will never be enough Muslims in this country to have a significant influence on anything" says Larry Brown. Unbelievable.
What is it you're suggesting they'll influence in a negative way? And I'd remind you that historically, similar statements have been made about waves of Catholic immigration, the Jews in this country, and the Mormons. (And we recently had a Mormon candidate for president. We're making progress!)
People here sometimes seem to focus on the 2nd Amendment and blow right by the 1st. I've heard people suggest that the Muslims will bring sharia with them. Read the 1st amendment. Can't happen. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." In shorter words, the 1st Amendment gives us freedom OF religion, and freedom FROM religion. We can practice our own, as long as it does not conflict with our laws. Ahmed says: "I want to stone my wife for adultery." Sorry, Ahmed. Adultery is no longer a crime most places in this country, and where it is, stoning is not the punishment. You want to do that, move back wherever you came from. Ahmed says: "I want to marry this 12 year old girl. Islam allows that." Sorry, Ahmed. American law does NOT allow that. (Allowing that would amount to "an establishment of religion". So it does not pass go.)
Give me one example--just one--of a religion (take your pick) that gets special rights based on their beliefs. Catholics--and there are something like 10x more of them in this country than Muslims (and they're WAY more popular too!)--teach that abortion is sin. So if they can convince a Catholic woman not to have one, that's OK. But they can't stop her from having one, as long as it's legal wherever she goes to have it done. Again, stopping her based on her religion, in conflict with American law, would be "an establishment of religion". And what a complicated mess we'd get ourselves into if we started granting special rights to anyone based on religion. Because then we'd have to give special rights to EVERYONE based on religion. Which would be an establishment of a whole bunch of religions. Muslims could have multiple wives. So could Mormons, if they wanted to return to that practice. Catholics couldn't have abortions.
Right now, we have Muslims who've been "vetted" by the military and the intelligence community--Iraqis and Afghans who've risked their lives with us, and have saved American lives--and they can't get into this country. If Muslims vetted to that extent--vouched for by the military, the CIA, etc--can't get into this country, I don't expect we're going to see planeloads or boatloads of them appearing any time soon.
But hey, if we wanted to keep anyone out based on religion or ethnicity . . . just think: should have sent the Italians back to Italy. No Mafia. How many lives would that have saved? Less prostitution, less illegal gambling, less drugs . . . all kinds of benefits. If we think on it long enough . . . hey, no Irish either. We wouldn't have to suffer green beer on St. Patrick's Day.
