Article by Robert Spencer in PJMedia
CAIR Files Discrimination Lawsuit Against Missouri Gun Range
“Islamophobia” is reaching epidemic proportions in Old Joe Biden’s America: the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Independence, Mo. law firm of Baldwin & Vernon filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday, claiming that Frontier Justice, a gun store and firing range in the Kansas City suburb of Lee’s Summit, discriminated against a Muslim woman, Rania Barakat, when it wouldn’t allow her to use the range while she was wearing her hijab.
If you believe the likes of CAIR, this is nothing out of the ordinary. You have already accepted the contention that America is a racist, redneck pesthole where roaming Trump supporters routinely make life miserable for pious, peaceful, innocent Muslims. That’s the narrative that CAIR would have you believe, and so it came as no surprise when this cynical and manipulative organization’s lawyers filed this suit. But the facts, as is virtually always the case in situations such as this one, are not as originally asserted.
The Associated Press reported that CAIR and Baldwin & Vernon claim “that the gun range at Frontier Justice in Lee’s Summit enforces its dress code in a discriminatory way that disproportionately affects Muslim women.” It seems that Barakat and her husband “went to Frontier Justice on Jan. 1 [2020] to shoot at the gun range. According to the lawsuit, Barakat was told she would not be allowed to use the range unless she removed her hijab, a religious head covering typically worn by Muslim women.”
That’s a clear case of discrimination, right? Clearly, Frontier Justice hates Muslims and doesn’t want them shooting guns. Or, if it is going to allow Muslim women in particular to fire weapons, they can only do so after being humiliated and forced to deny their faith and submit to the lustful gaze of the infidel males present, right?
That is evidently the reasoning of CAIR and Baldwin & Vernon. “This case,” said attorney Kevin Baldwin, “is about equality in all aspects of American life and about ensuring those promises and ideals set forth by the Founders ‘to secure the blessings of Liberty’ not just for themselves, but all who came after.”
Reality, however, is different. According to AP, “the gun range requires shooters to remove all head coverings except baseball caps facing forward. A store manager explained that shrapnel could cause the hijab and skin to burn.” Bren Brown, president of Frontier Justice, said, “It saddens us that anyone would say we are not inclusive, given that we serve all races and religions every single day in all of our stores. We pride ourselves on this fact, and we strongly believe in America and the Second Amendment that is for every single American. Period.”
The lawsuit, however, claims otherwise, and asserts that Frontier Justice applies its policies inconsistently. AP reports that the suit “also claims that Instagram posts from Frontier Justice show customers wearing baseball caps turned backward, and hats and scarves.”
Moussa Elbayoumy, chairman of the board of CAIR-Kansas, was enraged. “It is completely unacceptable for a business establishment to deny service to customers based on their religious beliefs — and that is exactly what Frontier Justice has done. The claim that a hijab somehow presents a safety issue is merely a bad excuse in an attempt to justify a pattern of discriminatory treatment of Muslim women.”
The case will turn on whether or not there is any substance to the claims that Frontier Justice selectively enforced its rules. However, the involvement of CAIR makes the case suspicious on its face, as CAIR has disregarded safety considerations before in its quest to find instances of discrimination against Muslims.
In August 2020, CAIR filed suit on behalf of three Muslim women who claimed they were forbidden to wear hijabs at their jobs at the New Castle, Delaware County Detention Center and Ferris School for adjudicated juveniles. CAIR attorney Zanah Ghalawanji said, “No one should have to pick between their livelihood and their faith. By standing up for their rights and fighting back, Tia, Shakeya and Madinah hope that this agency will be prohibited from imposing this terrible predicament on other women in the future.”
However, the facility where the women worked said it was a safety issue, not one of discrimination against Muslims. “In a written statement at the time, officials in charge of the facility where the women worked said they were not trying to ‘stifle religious freedoms’ and that allowing exceptions to policy is complicated when the safety of staff and youth is impacted. ‘We must carefully balance our strong support of religious freedom with the need to keep youth and staff safe,’ the statement said. ‘In some instances, a person’s job may require them to do certain actions, such as the physical restraint of a youth, that makes wearing some religious clothing unsafe.’”
Safety concerns are of little or no apparent interest to CAIR. The idea behind all these suits is to establish and reinforce the principle that, where Islamic law and American law and custom conflict, it is American custom that must give way. Also, many companies and institutions, wanting to avoid the hassle and negative publicity of a court battle, have settled for large sums just to make the thing go away. This kind of lawsuit is a reliable cash cow for Hamas-linked CAIR and its clients.
In the case of Frontier Justice, CAIR and its clients will hit the jackpot again if the case goes up before a judge who is receptive to the fictional claims that America is a nightmare of discrimination and harassment for Muslims.
