House Republicans spent much of Thursday mocking a bill put forth by the Muslim Minnesota congresswoman to combat Islamophobia worldwide after Rep. Lauren Boebert's comments suggesting that Rep. Ilhan Omar was a suicide bomber.
"I have many Pennsylvania Dutch that feel that they're not treated fairly," said Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania. How about the gay community? That should be in this bill.
There are people that are overweight, and there are kids that get picked on. Why aren't they included in this?
December 9, 2021.
The bill was introduced in October and would require the State Department to create a special envoy for monitoring and fighting Islamophobia.
"For over a decade we have seen increasing incidents of violent Islamophobia both in the US and worldwide, from the genocide of the Rohingya in Burma, and Uyghurs in China, to the attacks on Muslim refugees in Canada and New Zealand."
The number of hate crimes against American Muslims went up in the year after the travel ban was imposed.
The bill passed the House Foreign Relations Committee on Friday, with every Democrat voting in favor and every Republican against, and is expected to head to a full House vote on Tuesday. Progressives have introduced a resolution to strip Boebert of her committees, but Democratic leadership is considering a vote on the bill as a way to respond to the Boebert controversy.
House Republican leaders, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, have not taken any meaningful action against Boebert.
At a November 30 press conference, she spoke about how she received a threatening Islamophobic voicemail after a phone call with Boebert.
It was shameful and embarrassing.
Republicans used both proposed amendments to the bill and comments during the hearing to mock both the bill and its author, as well as downplaying Islamophobia.
Steve Chabot of Ohio, who accidentally posted an image from an anti-Semitic website in 2017, said that the bill would "trivialize" anti-Semitism, given the existence of another State Department post to combat that form of bigotry. "We should avoid such a dangerous false equivalency at all costs, as it could be used by some extremists to actually justify further anti-Semitic activity," said Chabot.
Mast said that he believed the bill was about targeting people who had hurt someone's feelings.
"If you ask 20 different people what Islamophobia means, you're going to get 20 different answers," said the Florida Republican. The answer will be what they decide is the best way to attack you.
An amendment was offered by Ken Buck of Ohio that stated that it would not be considered Islamophobia for an individual to criticize a brother marrying a sister for the purpose of committing immigration fraud in the United States.
The amendment was no longer available on the House Foreign Relations Committee website. The office of Rep. Buck did not respond to the request for comment.
The text of Rep. Buck's amendment.
There is a House Foreign Relations Committee.
Buck's other amendments, including one about female genital mutilation, remained online. The Israeli Government's counter-terrorism measures were not included in the amendment offered by Scott Perry.
In a statement to Insider, she condemned the behavior of the Republicans.
She said that it was shameful and embarrassing that the Republican Party's response to blatant Islamophobia was to double down on anti-Muslim rhetoric. Republicans engaged in ad hominem attacks, belittled Muslims, and minimized the pain of Muslim communities around the world, instead of engaging in a good faith discussion on how to address the rise of Islamophobic violence.
Democrats on the committee tried to defend the bill.
Ted Lieu of California said that the United States was boycotting the Olympics in China because it was engaging in a genocide of Muslims. The Muslims were slaughtered because of their religion.
He called attention to Boebert's comments.
Lieu said that a congressmember from the Republican Party made a joke about a congressmember from the Democratic Party being a terrorist because of her religion. "That's discrimination."
