#PHXmosque protests get loud, not violent
Police kept the peace
They came.
They saw.
They protested without hurting themselves or others.
I promised a round of applause for Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton if he and his city management and law enforcement teams managed to keep the peace between protesters and counterprotesters at last night’s free speech/anti-Islam/whatever you want to call it rally.
The verdict? They managed! Mr. Stanton, this one’s for you.
USA Today explains how things played out:
Police presence increased by 6:30 p.m. to physically separate the two sides outside the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix.
About 20 cars and 15 motorcycles traveled from a protester meeting point at a nearby park to the mosque around 6 p.m., where people from the two sides used megaphones to yell at each other and were at times nose-to-nose.
A large group of counter protesters held signs reading “Love not Hate,” as others waved American flags and one man ripped the Quran in half.
Counter protesters wearing blue lined the side closest to the mosque. They said they came from Redemption Church in Tempe and wore the color to be a peaceful presence.
Few people showed up for the mosque’s scheduled prayer service.
Supporters on both sides of the issue took to Twitter to speak their minds—and air their grievances:
I don't "get" the #PhxMosque thing. I wouldn't appreciate people protesting outside a church, so I can't support it outside a mosque.
— Jezebel Jalen (@GOPMommy) May 30, 2015
PHX PD are the real MVPs tonight. Proactive actions to ensure rally remains peaceful. #PHxMosque
— Josh Offenhartz (@Johartz) May 30, 2015
To sum up tonight's proceedings:
Gospel: yay
#PhxMosque: boo
— Tyler McNally (@Tyler_McNally) May 30, 2015
"I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world." ~ John Adams #PHxMosque
— Matthew Burke (@MatthewKBurke) May 30, 2015
Guess I've been too busy hanging out with cool Phoenix Muslim families to consider protesting a #phxmosque.
— jon gabriel (@exjon) May 30, 2015
A reporter with a local ABC affiliate was on the ground and working her way through the crowd during the protest, and was able to catch some of the more intense moments between the rally participants and counterprotesters who came out in support of the mosque.
I’ve been trying to come up with some sort of takeaway from all this. Maybe…a victory for free speech? I believe any victory for free speech is worth talking about, but I’m also taken aback at my own excitement over the fact that no one was injured.
I’m going to go with a victory for free speech because that’s what matters here. Protesters were free to protest, pro-Islam supporters were allowed to respond, and the city of Phoenix made sure that nobody moved from the realm of the First Amendment into the realm of a jail cell.
I don’t like everything I heard and saw in connection with this protest; fortunately for everyone in Phoenix, that doesn’t matter.
Isn’t America great?
Featured Image via 12 News.
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Comments
Welcome to freedom, muslims. If you don’t like it, put your chains back on and move back home.
There’s a kind of people that, when they want to protest, they cause injury and death.
And there’s another kind of people that, when they want to protest, nobody gets hurt.
Y’all figure it out.
Kudos for Mayor Stanton!
Unlike the poltroon in Garland, he seems to understand clearly that “public safety” is sometimes subservient to the exercise of civil rights by visitors or residents to his city.
Everybody involved seems to have behaved as they predictably would, whether you like that behavior or not. None of it violated the laws of the land, from what I can see, and the police did what they are supposed to do.
MSM insisted on calling it anti-Islam, or anti freedom of religion. I think pro free speech, anti-Sharia imposition, is maybe better phrasing.
Western Muslims should support free speech, and a right for non-Muslims to draw Mohammad and not be ruled by Sharia law. Most American Muslims claim even they are not under sharia law, from what I’ve heard. They might subject themselves to some “sharia”, but they can’t murder their children for leaving Islam, or stone their daughter for being raped, without the law of our land asserting its authority over them.
Instead of westerners and media being submissives, they should force the issue and clear the air, that offensive speech toward Islam is as acceptable as offensive speech toward Christianity. Print the cartoons. And for the brave leftists that demand Christians service gay mock weddings, start demanding the same of the Muslim small businesses. In so doing they can prove they believe in their coercive cause, and are not just displaying hate and bigotry toward Christians in particular.
But instead the media, Democrats, and the PC Religion act as advocates for the intolerance of Sharia, while Hillary states Christianity is going to have to change to meet her intolerant demands. It’s not good enough for her that Hobby Lobby provide birth control, she MUST force them to provide abortion pills, forcing Christians spit on their own belief, or be bankrupted by Big Gov fascists.
MSM is FOS, and has been, for a tiring amount of time.
There are so many ways to properly characterize the original set of protesters: pro-free speech, anti-assassin’s veto, anti-Islamist perversion, for instance. You do not have to be anti-Islam to recognize that this mosque is very likely a problem.
It was not an anti-Muslim demonstration, unless you believe the Islamist line that all Muslims have an individual, religious duty to murder their neighbors.
Of course, because this particular mosque was the source of two attempted murderers, there is a substantial likelihood that somebody in authority in that mosgue has been inciting murder.
If the MSM were doing its job, they would be reporting the names and affiliations of the likely preachers of this mosque. Are we to believe that nobody knows who is preaching and has preached, at that location?
Instead, all we get is dribs and drabs about a bunch of outsiders mixing it up outside the mosque.