David Caton of the Florida Family Association appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show yesterday where he mostly played the victim over the national controversy that was started by his group’s pressure campaign against advertisers on TLC’s All-American Muslim. He said that his group started the pressure campaign before the show even went on the air because he couldn’t “wait and see” what impact the “propaganda” would have. Upset that the show didn’t conform to his stereotypical beliefs that Muslims in America are extremists and terrorists, Caton criticized the show’s logo and casting because it makes people think that “all Muslims are all American and all Muslims in America are like this”:
Caton: This program was selecting in a manner and not only reflecting a manner, if you go to The Learning Channel and you look at the website and you look at the logo for ‘All-American Muslim’ it has the symbol of Islam in the ‘e,’ in the ‘a’ of ‘American,’ or in the ‘c’ of ‘American,’ the symbol of Islam and the symbol of American. You start watching this program and you realize they’re trying to persuade the public, the general public, that all Muslims are all American and all Muslims in America are like this, and they’re not…. And so it’s propaganda that needs to be called on. It’s the first show of its kind, and so if we had sat back and said ‘let’s wait and see,’ we can’t wait and see any more with this issue, this issue is too critical to the future of our country.
Later in the interview, Caton said that “all of America would rejoice and be doing handstands and high-fives” if Muslims renounced Sharia, or the moral and religious code followed by Muslims, arguing that Sharia “defies and destroys our values system.” He added that people should pray for him to “be in God’s will” and shed “light on darkness”:
Caton: If the core leadership, the Imams, the leadership of Islam in this country, in the mosques, of the mosques of America, were all like some of the people portrayed on this program I think all of America would rejoice and be doing handstands and high-fives because that would be true liberty for us all, they would be liberated from the bondage of Sharia law. But that’s not the case and our concern is one of concern for life and the preservation of life, and Sharia law is the opposite to that…. I can just keep going on with the number of tenants of Sharia law which is inconsistent with American law and which defies and destroys our values system.
Mefferd: Mr. Caton, how can we pray for your organization right now?
Caton: I just hope I would be in God’s will and that I would be continue to be willing to stand where I’m standing if you continue to stand with me and I don’t do anything apart from shedding light on darkness.
