Chapter 5

Even in Congress, a Muslim Braces for Discrimination

The midterm congressional elections of 2006 resulted in a Democratic Party sweep of both houses of Congress. Lost at first in the headlines about the elections was a smaller event that occurred during that same election season: Keith Maurice Ellison, an American lawyer and politician running as a Democrat and member of the Farmer-Labor Party, became the first African American elected to the House from Minnesota when he won the right to represent Minnesota’s fifth congressional district. Yet Ellison’s race was not as much an issue as his religion: he was also the first Muslim elected to the federal government in American history and became only the fourth elected Muslim official in the United States as of December 2006. Of course all this occurred during a period when the federal government’s war on terrorism has raised questions within the general public about the loyalty of Muslim Americans, many of whom have done nothing illegal or even suspicious.

Ellison’s religion made national news when he was first elected. Yet media coverage of Ellison went through the roof when words of intolerance were directed at him by one of his future colleagues, Congressman Virgil Goode (R–VA). After his victory, Ellison indicated that he planned to use the Koran for his unofficial swearing-in ceremony. This led Goode to send a letter to constituents in which he wrote the following:
I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration, there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.
Ellison criticized Goode about the letter, noting that he was not an immigrant and that Goode does not understand Islam. He has also offered to meet with Goode to discuss the matter. Rather than defusing the issue, Goode went on to state publicly that he was in favor of decreasing legal immigration to the United States, and that he hoped to eliminate diversity immigration visas, which go to applicants from countries that do not normally provide many individuals to the United States. Goode argued that such visas might allow people “not from European countries” or from “some terrorist states” to enter America.*