Keith X starting to ramp it up

When it became necessary to re-pass the Minnesota Personal Protection Act in 2005, I attended one of the hearings of the Crime Committee (I'm pretty sure they called it that) in the House. Rep. Keith Ellison was one of the members of that committee. I remember thinking at the time how juvenile this man was capable of acting. He made a grand show of speaking when it was his turn, yelling and gesturing wildly as he screamed that the act was going to cause a vast increase in crime in his district in Minneapolis (it didn't). He was quite rude during the debate, reacting combatively to witnesses testifying in favor of the Act, and refusing to give up the floor at least once when his time was up. The other Democrats on the panel voted against the PPA, but they were at least adult about it, debating the topic with seriousness and politeness. Not Ellison. He made it a point to whine and pout after the vote was taken, and it didn't turn out his way.

Note that this is not a knock on his religious affiliation. I don't care if he is Muslim, Buddhist, or Raelian. I do care that he respects my freedoms, and that he doesn't govern using his religion as his primary guidepost, rather than the Constitution and his constituents' wishes. I would expect this from any government official, no matter what his religion.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve, when Ellison made a speech in Dearborn, Michigan, to a mostly Muslim crowd. He apparently played like the second coming of Paul Wellstone, giving a stump speech in which he made some comments that gave me pause:

"Ellison...said that Muslims can help teach America about justice and equal protection."

Like one of the commenters after the article pointed out, I'd like Mr. Ellison to name one predominately Muslim country in which there is more justice and equal protection than America. Most of those countries are repressive theocracies, in which religious minorities and women are tolerated at best, and definitely not given "equal protection". I'd like to see what would happen if six priests were to pray loudly in Tehran's airport, for example, and yell "Praise Jesus" at the top of their lungs. We'd see really quickly how much justice and protection they'd get.

"Muslims, you're up to bat right now," he said. "How do you know that you were not brought right here to this place to learn how to make this world better?"

This disturbs me, because all of the analysis I've ever read about the Koran states that one of the primary objectives of Islam is to convert unbelievers or kill them. I hope that Mr. Ellison is not referring to this when he exhorts Muslims to "make the world better."

Speeches such as this make me wonder what order Mr. Ellison has his priorities in, and if he will place his country, which he was elected to serve, over his religion. Between this question, and my observations of his behavior, I'm glad that this man isn't representing me in Congress.