Here in the United States we have a midterm election coming up on November 3, 2026, just two weeks away. Control of the House and Senate is up for grabs, with Democrats heavily favored to gain a majority in the House and are less heavily favored to gain a majority in the Senate.
The state of Michigan has a hotly contested Senate race where the Democratic candidate is Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim physician. An interaction between El-Sayed and Tommy, a questioner at a campaign event, has gotten a lot of attention. A video is below. You’ll probably have to deal with some initial ads in the USA Today video. At least, I did.
Since I’m an atheist Democrat, it isn’t surprising that I feel El-Sayed handled Tommy with great skill and powerful logic. El-Sayed defends religious liberty as enshrined in our Constitution. Every American has the right to practice whatever faith they choose, or to have no faith at all, which is my choice.
Tommy, though, eventually is forced to admit that as a Christian, he can’t agree with El-Sayed that religious doctrine has no place in the laws of our country. Which shows that in this instance, a Muslim has a better understanding of religious liberty and our Constitution than a Christian did.
Here’s a transcript of the interchange between El-Sayed and Tommy. I copied the You Tube video transcript, but found that it wasn’t accurate in parts. So I cleaned up the transcript by comparing it to the audio in this video, and the more accurate captioning in the center of the screen. There may be.a few errors in the transcript, but it is as accurate as I could make it.
El-Sayed’s words are in regular type. Tommy’s words are in italics.
No, your friends got the mic…I’m asking you a simple question. You give me your name. I’ll answer the question. Okay.Tommy.Hi, Tommy. How are you?I’m great.Are you? Do you know what the Constitution of the United States is?I have one simple question. Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?Sure. Yeah, absolutely. But I want to… I want to ask to the question that you’re asking. Why are you asking the question?Well, because they’re a terrorist group.Okay. No, no, but what are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn’t?Yes.Why not?Because I have not heard you disavow them yet.Have you disavowed them? I haven’t heard you disavow them yet.I disavow them.Do you, great. But here’s the thing about it. You’re asking the question because implicitly you assume that I’ll have dual loyalties, right? You assume that somehow I wouldn’t disavow or that I’ll have some higher order allegiance than to the Constitution. Correct, Tommy? Is that what you imply?Yes.Why would you think that about me?Because I have not heard you disavowNo. No. No. No. Why would you actually think that about me?Because I have not heard you disavowBut I just did. But why would you actually think that? Why would you… Have you asked everybody in your life if they disavow them?I have not.So why are you asking me?Because I have not heard you disavow.No. No. No. Answer the question, Tommy. Everybody knows the answer to it. Answer the question. All right. So, let me just tell you. Let me just tell you. I’m going to swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States. And that Constitution guarantees us all the right to practice whatever faith we want. And now you assume you assume Tommy that because I am Muslim that somehow I would have some allegiance to something that is not our Constitution. That’s your assumption that’s implicit in the question. And what’s interesting to me is that this is not the first time people have asked those kinds of questions because… do you know who John F. Kennedy is? Do you know who that is, Tommy?I do.All right. Uh, do you know what he was asked as the first possible Catholic president of the United States? What did they ask him? You don’t remember? You should read history. Tommy, when he ran for president, he was asked whether or not he was going to have allegiance to the Pope at the Vatican because of course he’s Catholic. And his answer famously was that he was not running to be a Catholic president. He was running to be president and happened to be Catholic. Yeah, I’m not running to be a Muslim senator. I’m running for the U.S. Senate, and happen to be Muslim. And so, you know, it’s important, I think, because you would ask this question in a way that suggests that somehow our Constitution shouldn’t be the thing that all of us bear allegiance to. And I’m just telling you that for me that Constitution is the guiding light. It guarantees me the right to pray as I choose to pray or not pray at all. Guarantees you the right to pray as you choose to pray or not pray at all. Now Tommy, I’m going to ask you about your faith. Are you a man of faith?I am.And what faith do you practice?I am a Christian.You’re a Christian. Do you, no, no, I mean, it’s a good question. Look out. Do you live by Christian doctrine?I would say so, yes.Good. And you try as hard as you can to live by Christian doctrine, right?Yes.Do you think I have to live by Christian doctrine?Up to you.It’s up to me, right? Why? Why is it up to me?Because we have free will.Right, free will. And also in this country, what else do we have? What else do we have, Tommy? No, I mean, you’re asking me about my allegiance to the Constitution. It’s the Constitution, my guy. We have a Constitution and that Constitution guarantees you the right to live by your faith and guarantees me the right to do the same. And the reality of it is this. I’m never going to tell you what faith you can or can’t practice. I want to protect your right to practice your faith as you choose as a Christian man. The protection though is that it seems like you don’t want to protect my right to practice as I choose to. So I’m going to ask you, do you disavow any attempt to read any religious doctrine into the laws of our country?I do not.You don’t disavow that. So I think it’s you who needs to understand the Constitution, not me.
Discover more from Church of the Churchless
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
America was formed on right vs might. Right won but not never for long. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely ! I’ve never heard of rssb and now I’m googling to find out if there’s a reason for that. I met a man who said he knew a man that knew what was going on . Oh yeah met offline
The worst thing about the United States of America now are the voters. They’ve been brainwashed by media. How refreshing to have a politician tell you up front that he’s going to lie to you. And now I see these gurus are like politicians. Very interesting , thank you for letting me know what rssb is supposed to be. I do however see some dilemma amongst the cult followers but this is common in India. No reason to get excited. I’ve noticed I can actually write to India directly without any third party translators. But there’s no question that Indians exist in the USA and if you turn down the sound I don’t see any difference.
I like the way this politician uses the rope a dope . A method successfully used by boxer Muhammad Ali.
Ok ! Let’s put another slant on this: Under Islam what is the punishment for apostasy ?
Alright, truth seekers !
I’ll answer my own question:
The penalty (under sharia law) is death.
And how can the American constitution condone a faith which openly allows murder ?
(And Brian Ji, I especially seek your views on this, in less than 3 volumes please)
Eric
“Individuals: If any man or woman is found worshiping other gods, the sun, the moon, or the stars, they are to be stoned to death after a thorough investigation confirms the crime (Deuteronomy 17:2–7).”
That’s in the Holy Bible.
In the last twenty years the number of people put to death solely for the” crime” of apostacy across all Islamic nations is….
Zero.
Try not to replace one form of bigotry with another.
Our constitution that honors the rights of everyone to worship as they please, or not at all, covers this. This candidate has started repeatedly their first allegiance is to the constitution.
Unlike our President, whose first allegiance is to his bank account, whose second allegiance is to his ego, whose third allegiance is to his penis, and who has no allegiance to the constitution nor the rule of law.
The New Testament does not advocate nor command stoning to death.
What was the view of Jesus ?
• The Woman Caught in Adultery (John 8:1–11):, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7),
Until the late 19th century, the majority of Sunni and Shia legal schools (madhahib) viewed public apostasy by an adult male as a capital offense,
There are many extremists who have even murdered their daughters for associating with western boyfriends (in the west). And the prophet has stated to his followers to kill the infidels.
Jesus said “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
What are you missing here, Eric?
Anti-Catholicism was deplorable, but it existed for some valid reasons. Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors was a papal statement that condemned democracy and secularism. Keep in mind that the foundation of Catholic doctrine is that the pope should have supreme authority over the church, and, by extension, over the church’s members. Remember also that the Holy See largely sided with the Confederacy. In fact, the Vatican never declared slavery to be categorically immoral until the very late 1800s, decades after the Civil War.
And when did the Catholic church finally get around to saying that it no longer held — as it had for nearly 2000 years — that church and state should be one? Not until 1965. Judge for yourself if that declaration was sincere. Many Catholics today believe it wasn’t.
And so Kennedy faced legitimate questions about his ultimate loyalties, which he dealt with elegantly and rationally. He never implied the questioner was a hypocrite, a racist, or a bigot.
Bears mentioning that Joe Biden took a different approach from Kennedy. Biden constantly trumpeted that he was a Catholic; moreover, Biden admitted that he reversed certain legal decisions because Pope Francis told him too. Biden was also famously super lax about protecting the country’s borders. Big surprise: open borders is the darling social justice policy of Pope Francis and his bishops. Then there’s Francis’s obsession with climate change, and naturally that was a totally coincidental cause of the Biden admin. Then there’s the Catholic stance on labor unions…..in sum, it’s hard to name anything not on the official Vatican social justice list that wasn’t championed by Catholic President Joe Biden.
The only exception was abortion, which Biden did nothing about. But restricting abortion was beyond his powers anyway, and Biden also made a point of declaring he was personally against abortion.
Trump’s gross exploitation of religious sentiment needs no explication.
My point is that religious/ethnic affiliation CAN and indeed HAS influenced politicians to act in their religions or “their people’s” interest over American civic principles. I strongly surmise you’d agree with me on this.
The Zionists, the dual-loyalty shills for Israel, and the born-again white Evangelicals like Huckabee and Cruz who clearly care more about dispensational religious prophecies than the welfare of their American constituents are a genuine threat to the republic. Their radical religious views have been partly the cause of many trillions of dollars of waste and thousands of American and foreign lives.
Muslims, believers of whatever faith, and even atheists should be strongly queried by the press.
@ sant 64
Reading your post made me reflect on the wars in history and today.
It seems that many if not all are about identity, social and cultural…. who has the right to rule to govern, set standards for others.
Only yesterday I saw a documentary on that internal fight in Israel and how it is related to establishing an national identity in “hostile” environment… ” Israel and the fight for democracy”
Years ago I had seen another documentary on the coming together on one country of the different fractions that had lived in the diaspora and how they were fighting among one another as to whom had the final right to claim the rule.
In the latest documentary these different fractions had clustered together into two camps …when survival is at stake .. it seems …the hardliners rule … democracy can only flourish in welfare for all…
Speaking of those who have successfully made it into heaven “warriors and heros of great might”, who followed the instruction
“Conquer the world by conquering your mind”…
Jap Ji
They come from many different beliefs,
“Devotees from many regions live there, enjoying the bliss, as the true Lord dwells in their heart.”
-Jap Ji
Who can say that Atheists are not among them? For they have not denied anything, except their own negative tendencies.
If cream floats to the top, no need to understand the top.
Just let the cream arise on its own in its own way.
Protect those freedoms.
Instead of tracking what religion criminals are, the FBI tracks which religious groups criminals target.
Looking at the breakdown of single-bias religious hate crimes reported by the FBI and the Department of Justice, the vast majority of religious violent crimes target the following groups:
• Anti-Jewish Bias: Historically and consistently accounts for the highest volume of religious hate crimes, representing over 50% to 60% of all religiously motivated incidents (e.g., 1,832 incidents in a single annual cycle).
• Anti-Muslim Bias: Consistently ranks as the second highest, representing roughly 10% to 15% of religious bias incidents.
• Anti-Sikh Bias: A significant and rising category, often driven by perpetrators misidentifying victims’ religious attire.
• Anti-Christian Bias: Targets Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox individuals, combining for a smaller fraction (usually under 5% to 8%) of the total.
Note: According to data published by the OSCE Hate Crime reporting agency, roughly 40% to 45% of these reported U.S. hate crimes escalate into direct physical assaults, while the remainder consist of property damage, vandalism, and intimidation.