Anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney has unveiled a new petition, with support from Allen West and Andy McCarthy, demanding that the American Conservative Union kick Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan out of the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). CPAC had actually kicked Gaffney out in 2011 after an internal report found his accusations about the supposed ties between Norquist and Khan and the Muslim Brotherhood to be baseless and rooted in bigotry, but today the Huffington Post reports that Gaffney is embarking on yet another anti-Norquist campaign.
The conservative movement’s sowing of anti-Muslim paranoia and discord to help win elections is now coming back to bite it as even top conservative leaders like Norquist, who is married to a Muslim-American, are facing attacks.
At a 2011 right-wing summit, The Awakening, Gaffney was part of an event that immediately followed a panel featuring Norquist, where he delivered a presentation alleging that Norquist is “both enabling and empowering Muslim Brotherhood influence operations against our movement and our country.”
On his radio show last month, Gaffney said that Norquist is advancing the “civilization jihad of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
But Gaffney is not alone.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) denounced Norquist from the floor of the House for associating with “unsavory people and groups out of the mainstream.”
Glenn Beck and Jerry Boykin, the executive vice president of the Family Research Council, also dedicated an entire program to discussing Norquist’s supposed role as “a Muslim Brotherhood facilitator.”
Not holding back, anti-Muslim activist David Horowitz attacked Norquist as a “ practicing Muslim” who has “infiltrated” the GOP, and Robert Spencer said last year that Norquist’s presence at CPAC turned the gathering into a “Sharia-compliant conference.”
“They are enforcing the Sharia,” Pamela Geller said of CPAC after the summit rejected her panel last year, which she blamed on “the influence of what can only be described as Muslim Brotherhood facilitators or operatives like Suhail Khan and Grover Norquist.” She was still able to host a nonofficial event where one speaker said he was “proud” of attacks against mosques.
But perhaps our favorite rant against Norquist came from Cathie Adams of Eagle Forum, who said that she knows Norquist is a secret Muslim because “he has a beard.”
