I ran across this story on Facebook.
Heba Mohammad is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and founder of the school's Muslim Student Association. She was concerned the city wasn't providing free bus service on election day, and how this would impact low income voters. The city of Green Bay provides free bus service on Green Bay Packer game days. Why not do the same on election day to help low income people and those unable to drive vote?
That's a question she asked all 12 of Green Bay's aldermen. She received several replies, but one response from Chris Wery (R-District 8) stood out:
“Thank you for the email,” Wery’s response read. “You pose an interesting question that deserves some further research. UWGB is my alma mater. I am just curious, you are the founder of the Muslim Student Association at UWGB? Across the country there seem to be some problems here and there with some MSA’s. I just want to be assured that your group in no way promotes or defends militant Islamic ideology or Sharia law. Do you and the MSA condemn both of those as well as terrorist groups such as HAMAS?”
Sadly, I wasn't that surprised. I've run into a lot of Islamophobia and ignorance over the years. I'm also ignorant about Islam, but I'm trying to learn and wrote about my personal experience visiting a Mosque -
here. I've run into Christians who think Islam is an evil religion and we are engaged in a holy war we must win. I once talked to a Muslim woman who told me how she found out about 9/11. She was in a grocery store and someone began making ugly comments and smashing her groceries.
When I read news articles online about the tragic news in Iraq and Syria, I often run into hateful comments. These comments bother me.
When reading the article, I tried to put myself in Heba's and other Muslim-Americans shoes. How would I feel if I asked an elected official a question, and received a reply saying "that's interesting" but told me there have been problems with some Christian churches and asked me to condemn the actions and ideology of a few Christians? And there's no shortage of examples.
In any religion, you are going to find saints and you will find people who tragically distort the faith in ways that seriously hurt other people. And you'll find most people are human beings who try the best they can to be good Muslims or good Christians or good Jews or good Buddhists but make mistakes along the way as we all do.
The entire email exchange can be found on her Facebook page - here. and here.
In addition, Heba's initial email makes no reference to her religion or the University Muslim Student Association. It appears the City Councilman saw her name, and felt a need to research her. That search should also have revealed she received a University "Outstanding Women of Color" award.
But back to Heba's question about the city of Green Bay providing free bus service on election day. I'm not a Green Bay resident. But I think it is a great idea for cities to offer free public transportation on election day! I think we should do EVERYTHING possible to to give EVERYONE a fair chance to participate in our democracy including making election day a national holiday. I don't think it is right some people can't participate because they don't have a voter ID, or due to socioeconomic status or disability, etc. In recent years, the Republican Party has done everything it can to make it harder for certain people to vote (people of color, immigrants, students, the elderly and disabled) by passing voter id laws.
Why would the city of Green Bay provide free bus service on Green Bay Packer game days, but not on election day? I don't know for certain. I suspect its because the Green Bay Packers are a large organization important to the local economy? The Packers and the city's restaurants and bars probably lobbied the city to provide free bus service to increase attendance?
Why wouldn't providing EVERYONE a fair chance to vote be important to a local economy? Don't elected officials make decisions that have an impact on the local economy?
And isn't it the right thing to do?
11:05 AM PT: In the comments, ExpatGirl linked to an excellent write up at Wonkette on this incident - http://wonkette.com/...
12:56 PM PT: I just noticed Change.org has a petition asking for his resignation-
https://www.change.org/...