2016 July 15^th

As expected, in response to the deaths in Nice, France, we have some comments by American politicians. Newt Gingrich’s remarks stand out for the sheer idiocy of their content. Gingrich wants to deport all Americans “who believe in Sharia law.”

There is no excuse for this silliness, but consider Gingrich’s position. He has been making nice (with occasional lapses) to Donald Trump in the obvious hope of becoming Trump’s running mate and lending some genuine political smarts to Trump’s campaign. That isn’t going to happen; Mike Pence, the Governor of Indiana, who infamously authored Indiana’s “Religious Freedom” law, has received the royal nod. (The religious freedom law allowed businesses to refuse service to people based on their sexual identity.) Now that Trump’s vice presidency slot has closed, so has Gingrich’s last chance for national relevance. He is 73 years old and it is inconceivable that any other platform permitting his grandstanding will come along.

Newt Gingrich has seized this opportunity to obtain again, however briefly, the national stage by suggesting the deportation of Muslims, or anyone else, who believe in Sharia law. Gingrich knows perfectly well that any such action would be unconstitutional, and that’s why his comments are political grandstanding. He made this ludicrous announcement on Hannity’s Fox News program and Hannity quickly agreed that Gingrich’s remedy was the right thing to do. Who is surprised?

Trump was also quick to declare just how tough he’d be on Muslims coming into the country. He’d make it really tough. Exactly what would he do that isn’t being done now? He wasn’t asked by O’Reilly, and so he didn’t volunteer. Trump is a master of the vague statement.

This degree of international upset is exactly what ISIS would like to see happen...if they had engineered this massacre in Nice. But maybe they had nothing to do with it. The driver of that truck was not on the lists of ISIS suspects maintained by the French police. OK, that means very little. ISIS, usually quick to claim responsibility when they are responsible hasn’t claimed any responsibility, thus losing a powerful recruiting tool. This was a lone individual. How many lone individual ISIS attacks have there been in France? The perpetrator has been identified and he was a petty criminal, a thief whose wife recently left him taking their children with her.

The killings at the Orlando nightclub frequented by gays were dedicated by Mateen, the perpetrator, to ISIS. There is no evidence that any ISIS official even knew about Mateen’s plan, much less helped him carry it out. There is evidence that Mateen, a Muslim, was gay. This sexual orientation conflicted with his Muslim beliefs and alienated him from his homophobic father. Perhaps he believed he could recover his lost merit by slaughtering as many gay people as he could; perhaps ISIS really had nothing to do with that slaughter, except to provide justification after the fact for a conflicted mind.

Does the fact that the Nice killer was Muslim mean his attack was the work of ISIS? When we find priests who are pederasts, do we blame Christianity?