When Ignorance Is Not Bliss

Michael Youssef

On December 13, 2011, Michael Gerson posted “Gingrich’s Embrace of Shallow Ideas” on TownHall.com. In this column, he blasted former Speaker Gingrich for his honest assessment of Sharia law, its implications in the West, in general, and the United States, in particular.

The sad thing about Mr. Gerson is that he was President George W. Bush’s speech writer. Though President Bush is a good man who is respected by so many,including me, his confused and incoherent policies regarding Islamic fundamentalism landed us in two wars – one of which was totally unnecessary. I am referring to the Iraq War, a war that directly gave rise to the current Iranian threat and rise to power.

Mr. Gerson’s incoherent policies were inflicted upon us in conflicting statements made by Mr. Bush regarding Islam when he was president. He once referred to Islam as a “religion of peace,” but soon began calling it Islamofascism. Which one is it Mr. Gerson? He also inaccurately stated that Christians and Muslims worship the same God
Speaker Gingrich has had the courage to call Sharia what it is: “...inherently brutal -- defined by oppression, stonings and beheadings...” For his courage, Speaker Gingrich needs to be praised, not criticized. The evidence of stoning and beheading women for the mere accusation of adultery fills the Saudi landscape. Only a person who decides to deliberately and meditatively place blinders on their eyes can ignore these realities. In fact, the harsh realities of Sharia are not limited to Islamic countries. As I recounted in my recent book, When the Crosses are Gone, Sharia law was upheld in New Jersey family court in 2009 when a woman was denied a restraining order against her Moroccan ex-husband who had repeatedly entered her home and forced her to have sex against her will. The ex-husband and his imam argued that Sharia law did not give her the right to deny him. She lived in fear of being raped by him for a year before the decision was overturned on appeal.

In Mr. Gerson’s most recent column, he bases his assessment regarding Sharia on the writings of a beleaguered, tiny minority of secular Muslims who, to their credit, are trying very hard to reinterpret Islam in the light of the 21st century. This beleaguered, threatened, tiny minority of secular Muslims is not only living under a constant threat by the Muslim majority, but are not even considered to be true Muslims by that same majority.

Had President Bush and his speech writer, Mr. Gerson, understood the realities on the ground in the Middle East, they would have called upon the King of Saudi Arabia to move into the 21st Century and abandon Sharia rather than hold hands with him on Mr. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, TX.

Because I am neither a politician nor affiliated with a political party, it matters very little to me whether it is a Democrat or a Republican muddling the truth. Therefore, I call upon both Democrats and Republicans to face the facts of the danger of Sharia.