Texas Faith Fest attendees reveal how they plan to make life as ‘uncomfortable’ as possible for Muslims living in Lone Star State

Conservative Texas state lawmakers have shared their plans to make life as ‘uncomfortable’ as possible for Muslims living in the state. 

The politicians spoke about restricting services for what they called a ‘hostile alien civilization’ at the ‘Don’t Sharia My Texas’ panel of the Texas Faith Fest on Saturday.

Some of the ideas floated were preventing vouchers from going to Islamic schools, a call for banning public institutions from serving halal food and prohibiting calls to prayer from playing over loudspeakers, the Houston Chronicle reports. 

‘The more uncomfortable they are the better,’ State Rep Keresa Richardson said.

Muslim people make up only about two percent of the Lone Star State’s population.

But they have become an increasing focus in Texas politics ever since a Dallas-area mosque shared its plans to build a ‘Muslim-centric’ neighborhood last year.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has spoken out against the project, directing a series of state agencies to investigate it. 

He has since also called for funding freezes and investigations into airports that had facilities built for Muslim pre-prayer washing. 

Then, at the Republican National Convention in Dallas last month, Abbott vowed to ‘fully ban sharia law in Texas.’ 

Other state lawmakers also made it clear at the panel discussion on Saturday that they, too, were offended by the number of Muslims living in Texas and the tenets of their faith.

‘We are basically being extorted by a hostile civilization, hostile alien civilization whose intent is to do nothing less but undermine our founding principles,’ Wise County Republican Representative Andy Hopper said.

He went on to argue that lawmakers have a responsibility to ‘peel out all of these little infestations of ideas that are contrary to our way of life’ by ensuring students in Texas learn ‘how awful Islam is.’ 

State Representative Brent Money also suggested that the state ban public institutions like prisons from providing any kind of religiously-required food – which would also ban kosher food offerings for Jewish people.

Richardson later brought up the idea of banning public broadcasts of the call to prayer.

‘I’m not telling you you can’t pray five times a day, but just don’t, don’t disrupt the rest of us while you do it,’ she explained to the Chronicle. 

All of the lawmakers, however, acknowledged that federal law protects Muslims’ freedom to practice their religion.

But they told the Chronicle the policies they were proposing would apply equally to people of all faiths.

Still, analysts say the proposals could face legal hurdles.

Elizabeth Reiner Platt, director of the Law, Rights and Religion Project at Union Theological Seminary, for example, said the proposal to ban halal food would conflict with a law former President Bill Clinton signed in 2000.

It bars prisons from stopping someone from practicing their religion, unless officials show they are doing so in the least restrictive manner possible and are furthering a compelling state interest.

Francis Beckwith, a professor of philosophy and church-state issues at Baylor University, though, suggested that a ban on public prayer broadcasts could withstand legal scrutiny if it is applied equally to all faiths.

‘But if it permits prayers of other faiths while excluding Muslim prayers, the policy is unlikely to survive judicial scrutiny,’ he said, noting that a litany of US Supreme Court decisions have held that the government cannot single out a specific religion with special restrictions.

Platt, however, argued that the proposed policy would be unconstitutional even if it didn’t explicitly single out Muslims because the state lawmakers have made it clear their goal is to target Muslim prayer calls specifically.

‘There’s a distinction between a neutral noise ordinance and a law that is intentionally crafted to suppress a particular religious exercise or religious community,’ she said.

Yet some of the panelists on Saturday questioned whether Islam deserved religious protections at all.

‘I think there’s a very real conversation we need to have or whether Islam is a religion or not,’ Money said.

John Bean, a Texas Values board member, later told the Chronicle: ‘People think Islam is a religion, and that’s where they have had such traction under our freedom of religion laws.’

But, he said, the Quran instructs its followers to kill all non-Muslims. Mainstream Muslim scholars, however, have argued that the passages are about military conflicts and not a broader call to violence.

‘We basically have to make it so uncomfortable for them and make them feel so unwelcome that they want to leave,’ Bean said.

‘That’s my ultimate goal.’