In case you missed it, last week The Daily Show ran a funny piece on the battle over the re-election of Joe Straus as speaker of the Texas House. The show poked fun at the “miracle” of electing a Jewish speaker in a famously Christian land like Texas. And predictably, they found plenty of religious discrimination and rank hypocrisy in Texas, only it was directed at another minority religious group — American Muslims.
When correspondent John Oliver went looking for a useful bigot, Dave Welch of the right-wing Houston Area Pastor Council proved himself more than happy to oblige. Oliver asked — tongue in cheek — “Can we at least agree that we don’t want a Muslim speaker?” To which a smug Welch replied:
“I would say right now, yes, for a variety of reasons. Again, we have deep concerns about the loyalty of Muslims to the Constitution.”
Wait a minute.
Last time I checked, the Constitution pretty clearly states “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States” (Article VI, paragraph 3).
Somebody isn’t being loyal to the Constitution, alright. But it isn’t American Muslims.
Texas Freedom Network 
February 15, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Coffee-spewing moment was when the little girl put on the tiny cowboy hat with a Star of David on the front. A laff riot.
The shorter Welch: Ah am not a big-got! I jes don’t like no one who is differnt frum me, like, jews, blacks, womenfolk, muslims, American Indians and Episcopalians. Gimmie a fat, white, good ole boy any day!
February 17, 2011 at 1:22 pm
I must respectfully disagree: the right wing in America is, ultimately, not interested in imposing a religious test only on Muslims. Ultimately, they would like to impose a religious test on everyone who is not a conservative Christian (what they’d REALLY like to do is exclude everyone who’s not a conservative evangelical Christian, but they need the Catholics).