The New York Times reported this month that Texas Republicans, needing a new “threat” around which to inflame voters’ fears, have settled on Muslims, who make up about two percent of the state’s population. GOP politicians are claiming that urgent action is needed to prevent Texans from being crushed “under the heel of ‘Sharia law.’”
Politico has also reported that vehemently anti-Muslim fearmongering is playing a prominent role in Republican campaigns in the run-up to the state’s March 3 primary, during which Republican voters will also be asked to vote yes or no on the nonbinding proposition that “Texas should prohibit Sharia law.”
Religious-right activist Rick Green held a "What To Do About Sharia" event at his Patriot Academy headquarters in Texas last week, during which anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney declared that banning sharia law must become a “voting issue” in every race in the country the 2026 elections.
The Times' recent story noted that the surge in anti-Muslim rhetoric from Texas Republicans is also sending a signal to those nationwide “searching for rhetorical targets now that the nation’s southwestern border has grown quiet.”
Right on cue, the MAGA mouthpieces at Intercessors for America, a network of pro-Trump “prayer warriors,” is distributing a report warning about “the increasing dominance of Islam in the laws and culture of our nation” and rallying “strategic” prayer against the “demonic power” of Islam and the “evil phenomenon” they call the “Islamification of America.” It’s worth noting that while Islam is growing in the U.S., Muslims make up significantly less than two percent of the country’s population today. The IFA’s report highlights “the anti-Christ spirit” of Islam, though its definition would apply equally to any non-Christian religion.
Christian nationalists’ deep hostility toward Islam has often undermined their declared commitment to religious freedom. Family Research Council Executive Vice President Jerry Boykin once declared, “No mosques in America” and has said the First Amendment should not apply to Islam, while FRC President Tony Perkins claimed that Islam doesn’t merit the same constitutional protections as Christianity because only 16 percent of Islam counts as religion. Perkins was beating the Sharia drum a decade ago when he was defending then-candidate Donald Trump’s vow to ban Muslims from entering the country.
Given how relentlessly religious-right groups have fought for broad religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws and other accommodations, it’s remarkable to see IFA complaining about religious accommodations being made for Muslim students, prisoners, and others. While Christian nationalists want to turn public schools into mission fields for evangelical Christianity, IFA is complaining about students learning about Islam as part of classes on world cultures.
The IFA report quotes a conservative pundit warning that Sharia violates the Constitution by imposing religious laws on those outside the faith. Of course, Christian nationalists seek to use the power of the government to force Americans of all faiths and none to live according to their own interpretation of the Bible and God’s will. IFA urges people to pray that God would “enable the government to be an instrument of protection against Islam which is counter to our Constitution.”
Extreme Christian nationalists like Doug Wilson, who recently led an official worship service at the Pentagon, believe Muslims and other non-Christians should not be permitted to worship publicly or hold public office—clear violations of the U.S. Constitution’s protections for religious freedom.
The IFA report complains about Keith Ellison using a Quran during his ceremonial swearing in as the first Muslim elected to Congress two decades ago as well as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani doing the same this year. Of course, both swore the same oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution as every leader who placed their hand on a Bible.
Speaking of Mayor Mamdani, whose election has set off sputtering rage among religious-right activists who see it as a step in Muslim leaders’ plan for world conquest and domination, here’s part of what the mayor had to say during his remarks at an interfaith prayer gathering earlier this month:
I was raised in New York City as a Muslim kid with a Hindu mother. I celebrated Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha with my family, lit diyas in Riverside Park for Diwali, and like any New Yorker, encountered faiths different from my own. I still remember coming home from a friend's Bar Mitzvah one night and demanding an explanation from my father. "Baba," I asked, "Why don't Muslim kids have Bar Mitzvahs too?"
And over the past fifteen months, as I ran to become Mayor of our incredible city, that encounter only deepened as I came face-to-face with the living tapestry of faith that is New York.
…
My friends — for as long as people have called New York home, a question has been contested: who is a New Yorker? At each juncture, many have sought to narrow the answer. The stranger has been ostracized on job postings, on placards denying entry to restaurants and shops, in neighborhoods where only some New Yorkers were allowed to live. Every conceivable crack has been exploited into a chasm of division.
On every occasion where the forces of darkness have raised the question, "Who is a New Yorker?" The people of this city have offered our own answer. All of us.
And yet we know that that answer is not permanent, nor is it predetermined. Each generation must assert what we know to be true, because New York serves as living proof—we are stronger when we welcome the stranger.
This will not be an easy contest. Those on the other side, the ICE agents of the world, hold power and weaponry and a sense of impunity. And yet, we hold one advantage over them, one advantage that no matter how hard they try, they cannot overcome, as they mask their faces to attack and murder: we are not ashamed of our answer.
So let us answer the question — who is a New Yorker?— once more, with conviction, and without shame. It is all of us.
