There aren’t a lot of people living today who have a direct memory of John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign, but most of us have read about the “Roman Catholic” problem that he faced in a predominantly Protestant 1960s America.
Catholics were not the assimilated and accepted group back in 1960 that we are today, 66 years later. Kennedy had to convince the skeptical Protestants he was not going to be a “Poppet,” namely, a rubber stamp for the Vatican.
He gave a speech in Houston before Christian ministers to calm their fears of “dual loyalties,” and made the following statement: “I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I do not speak for the Catholic Church on issues of public policy, and no one in that church speaks for me… The fact is that the Catholic Church is not a monolith — it is committed in this country to the principles of individual liberty — and it has no claim over my conduct as a public officer sworn to do the public interest.”
That was pretty much the last time that the issue of dual loyalty has been raised in a presidential campaign, with the possible exceptions of Mario Cuomo and Geraldine Ferraro, who had more of a problem with their ethnicity and insinuation of Mafia connections than religious taint.
Now it’s no longer the Catholics Uncle Sam is nervous about. Now it’s the Muslims, and one Muslim in particular, Abdul El-Sayed.
El-Sayed, a doctor — although technically not a physician — is running for a U.S. senate seat in Michigan, a state with a huge Arab Muslim population.
He is in an ugly, neck-and-neck race with Mike Rogers, a former U.S. representative from that state from 2001 until 2015.
In their second debate a few nights ago, El-Sayed addressed the allegation that he is the son of a woman who belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood in college.
Notably, he was not raised by this woman, his biological mother, who split from his father when Abdul was 3 years old.
Personally, I think the attempt to connect El-Sayed to terrorism is going to backfire with moderates, who don’t like what they think smells of bigotry. However, it might very well have some impact on those who, like the Protestants of 1960, see an “other,” someone who comes from a tradition that is much more exotic than the folks who didn’t eat meat on Fridays.
But there’s another problem: Is it unfair to ask a candidate to establish his unconditional loyalty to the Constitution of this country?
I don’t think so. While some Catholics might have been a bit annoyed at having to prove their red-white-and-blue cred, it is entirely fair to want the leader of the nation to be 100% American, with no dual nationality.
In Kennedy’s case, it wasn’t his religion so much as the idea that he would be a citizen of the Vatican before he was a president of the United States.
In the case of El-Sayed, we are not talking about presidents, so the issue is a bit more nuanced. He would be one out of 100. And yet, it’s legitimate to probe any family ties to an organization that has wreaked havoc over the years, claiming the lives of American soldiers and civilians because of its fundamentalist philosophy. That’s not religion, that’s politics.
And speaking of politics, El-Sayed is on record stating that Israel is not an ally of the United States. That is troubling to hear, from a man who has Egyptian citizenship in addition to his U.S. passport.
Of course, the candidate hasn’t really had much of a relationship with his crazy momma for years. And I know a lot of people who have dual citizenship in this country, and they are very devoted to the U.S. But they are not running for public office.
Frankly, I’m a little tired of people pulling out the Islamophobe and the bigot card simply because they are asking these question sabout allegiance and priorities. It is certainly troubling that El-Sayed once campaigned with Hassan “America deserved 9/11” Piker, even though he has since distanced himself from the man.
It is also true that he has disavowed terrorism and has condemned any violence against Jews.
The point is, we have a right to ask the questions. And we should ask them, whether the target is kneeling next to us in the pew, or praying to Allah at the end of the day.
Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times in Pennsylvania. Her column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
