I had a treat over the weekend — I got to go to Palm Beach and see a lot of people I admire and hear their views on the political scene, at David Horowitz’s Restoration Weekend. I won’t go into the political talks by Dick Morris, Karl Rove and others, but I want to tell you a little about the speakers who covered topics we’re interested in here at RRW.

First I’ll tell you about the indispensable Robert Spencer, master of Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch, regular writer for FrontPage Magazine, and author of numerous books. His most recent, which I’ve begun reading, is Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs. The stealth jihad is what we’ve been documenting here, especially the activities of Somalis.  When we began looking into the refugee issue we had no idea that sneaking Islam into American society was such a big part of it. Now we know. Here are a few highlights from Robert’s talk:

There is a contradiction between two legal principles that the Islamists are bringing to the fore. They use the decree of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that “reasonable accommodation must be given to religious activities” to push their demands, such as footbaths at colleges or their refusal to take passengers  carrying alcohol at the Minneapolis airport. We know this is pushing because Muslims have lived without footbaths until very recently, and Robert said he has bought alcohol from Muslims all over the country; it was a new fatwah by the Muslim Brotherhood that Muslims cannot transport alcohol that created the issue.

So colleges and airport authorities and the like are inclined to give in, because they don’t want the EEOC investigating them and punishing them for violating religious rights. But Muslims aren’t just asking to practice their religion; they want employers and colleges to spend money accommodating them, and they want to inconvenience other people. They don’t have to do that. Here’s the relevant paragraph from the EEOC’s page on religious discrimination:

An employer is not required to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs and practices if doing so would impose an undue hardship on the employers’ legitimate business interests. An employer can show undue hardship if accommodating an employee’s religious practices requires more than ordinary administrative costs, diminishes efficiency in other jobs, infringes on other employees’ job rights or benefits, impairs workplace safety, causes co-workers to carry the accommodated employee’s share of potentially hazardous or burdensome work, or if the proposed accommodation conflicts with another law or regulation.

But the Muslims push. And when employers give in to their demands, often they are discriminating against non-Muslims, which is also illegal. This was what happened at the Swift plant in Greeley, Colorado, and the non-Muslims fought back. As Robert pointed out, the meaning of the “reasonable accommodation” principle needs to be decided in court.

The general stance of Muslims is “All we want are our rights.” This is used by the Muslim Student Association’s Muslim Accommodations Task Force to push for separate gym facilities, dorms, prayer rooms, etc., as well as by other Muslim groups to push, push, push. We know Muslims are not allowed to drink alcohol. This rule has grown in to refusals to handle alcohol, which we know about. But did you know this? In Britain, Muslims are picketing Tesco stores, a supermarket chain, to get them to stop selling alcoholic beverages. That’s where this is leading. Muslim rights include their right to impose their rules — Sharia law — over the entire societies where they live.

Robert said a lot more, on some other subjects. I’ll post this now, and cover more in a later post.