Oklahoma Republican under fire for racist anti-Muslim comments

Rasa - GOP state Sen. John Bennett doubled down on his views Wednesday, calling American Muslims ‘a cancer in our nation that needs to be cut out.’

News ID: 1167

Date: 18 September 2014 - 13:25

RNA (US) - An Oklahoma lawmaker is doubling down on racist remarks he made last week and even upped his fiery rhetoric, saying that all American Muslims are a "cancer in our nation that needs to be cut out out."

Republican state Sen. John Bennett refused to apologize Wednesday for a Facebook post he wrote last week in which he said his constituents should "be wary of individuals who claim to be Muslim American, be especially wary if you're Christian."

Given the opportunity to refute the remarks, which elicited a stern response from the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Bennett refused and insisted he was in the right.

"Islam - if you bring it up as a non-Muslim, you're called a racist, or a bigot, or an Islamophobe. That's what I was called by CAIR," he told the Tulsa World. "But, I'm speaking the truth."

"Their goal is the destruction of Western civilization from within. This is a cancer in our nation that needs to be cut out," he said, before adding that he knows he's correct because he's read the Koran.

"Ninety percent of it is violence. And only 10 percent of it is conciliatory, or what some would say is the 'peaceful' part of the Koran," he said.

Bennett went on to take aim at CAIR, comparing the civil rights group that works with Muslim communities to the bloodthirsty jihadist group ISIS.

"I'm going to talk about threat of ISIS, and the Muslim Brotherhood, and CAIR, which is right here in the state of Oklahoma," he said. "Is there a difference between moderate and radical Islam? I say no."

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