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| Congressman says most constituent feedback supportive |
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Friday, December 22, 2006
ROCKY MOUNT (AP) — A Virginia congressman said Thursday he will not retract his letter to constituents in which he said unless immigration is tightened “many more Muslims” will be elected to office.
Rep. Virgil Goode, a Republican whose 5th District includes Henry County and Martinsville, triggered angry responses from an Islamic civil rights group and some of his colleagues by his letter to constituents who e-mailed him about a new Minnesota congressman’s decision to use the Quran at his private swearing-in ceremony.
“I will not be putting my hand on the Quran,” Goode told a news conference Thursday at the Franklin County Courthouse.
In a letter earlier this month to hundreds of constituents about Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, Goode warned that strict immigration policies are necessary “to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America.”
“The Muslim representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran,” he wrote.
Ellison said Thursday that Goode and others had nothing to fear about Muslims.
“They are our nurses, doctors, husbands, wives, kids, who just want to live and prosper in the American way,” Ellison, a Democrat, said Thursday on CNN. “And that there’s really nothing to fear. And that all of us are steadfastly opposed to the same people he’s opposed to, which is terrorists, and so there’s nothing for him to be afraid of.”
Asked in the CNN interview if he thought Goode was a bigot, Ellison said, “I don’t know the fellow, and I’d rather just say that he has a lot to learn about Islam. ... I don’t want to start any name-calling.”
Ellison stressed that the Constitution has no religious test for members to serve in Congress.
Virginia’s senior senator, Republican John Warner, said in a statement Thursday that he respects the right of members of Congress to freely “exercise the religion of their choice, including those of the Islamic faith utilizing the Quran.”
“Bringing more Muslim-Americans into the political process is a goal, not something to be avoided,” Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., said in a statement.
Goode said he is receiving more positive than negative comments from constituents.
“One lady told me she thinks I’m doing the right thing on this,” he said in a Fox News interview on Thursday. “I wish more people would take a stand and stand up for the principles on which this country was founded.”
Goode said he is co-sponsoring legislation to end diversity visas, which he told Fox News lets in people “not from European countries” and “some terrorist states.”
Ellison was born in Detroit and converted to Islam in college.
Franklin County Sheriff Quint Overton said he had extra officers at the courthouse Thursday because Goode had received several threatening phone calls.
Asked at the press conference whether he had received any death threats, Goode responded, “No comment.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Goode’s remarks sent “a message of intolerance that is unworthy of anyone elected to public office,” and called on Goode to apologize.
Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a Chicago Democrat who is Jewish, said Thursday he hopes Goode would meet with Ellison.
“If (Goode) meets with Keith,” Emanuel said, “he’ll see what I saw: a good American with good values of a different faith who’s trying to do right by the people he represents.”
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., wrote to Goode that he took the remarks as “personally offensive” to the large community of Muslim-Americans he represents. Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also labeled the remarks offensive.
Goode said he had not posted his letter on his Web site and was merely responding to constituents who were upset about Ellison’s decision to use the Quran.
“Prior to his election, this wasn’t an issue,” Goode said Thursday.
Ellison’s decision to use the Quran at his ceremonial swearing-in next month has generated heated controversy. Conservative talk radio host Dennis Prager has been critical of it, prompting CAIR to call for Prager’s removal from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum board. |
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