From Associated Baptist Press, Religion News Service and BJC Staff Reports
Two new commissioners appointed to an independent panel that advises the State Department on international religious freedom violations are drawing criticism for holding views described as out of the mainstream.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., picked Zuhdi Jasser, president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, for his choice as a commissioner on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan panel appointed by leadership of both houses of Congress and the White House.
Jasser fills a slot vacated by Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, who was ineligible for reappointment due to newly imposed term limits.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations described Jasser as a “mere sock puppet for Islam haters and an enabler of Islamophobia.” More than 1,800 people have signed a petition asking McConnell to “reconsider” his appointment.
Jasser, a physician in Phoenix, Ariz., and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, has angered many Muslim Americans for his work with groups they say demonize Muslims and for supporting policies that they say infringe on their civil liberties.
Jasser narrated “The Third Jihad,” a documentary widely considered to be Islamophobic. He has also defended the New York City Police Department against attacks that it spied on Muslims, and he testified on Capitol Hill on the problem of Muslim “extremism” in the U.S.
Another new USCIRF member, appointed by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is Princeton University professor Robert George, who has faced questions about his own ties to anti-Muslim organizations.
George, a Catholic, is also co-author, with Southern Baptists Timothy George and Chuck Colson, of the Manhattan Declaration, a 2009 document that has recently drawn attention for comparisons to a historic declaration by church leaders opposed to Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
With Land’s departure, the commission’s only remaining Baptist is William Shaw, immediate past president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., and pastor of White Rock Baptist Church in Philadelphia, appointed by President Barack Obama.
The newest member of USCIRF at press time was Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett. Nominated March 28 by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Lantos Swett is president and CEO of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights, and she teaches human rights and American foreign policy at Tufts University.
At press time for Report from the Capital, there were two remaining vacant positions yet to be filled.
