On Monday’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough returned to attacking the “anti-Muslim bigotry” inspiring protests against a Ground Zero mosque, asking Grover Norquist to denounce religious bigotry. Norquist obliged in a major way, comparing today’s Ground Zero activists to Calvinist leader Peter Stuyvesant trying to forbid synagogues in the New Amsterdam colony in the 1650s. Norquist explicitly suggested a Mormon like Beck should realize that he’s only been pushing the bigotry that was used against his own religious brethren.
Scarborough also bizarrely found scandal in Beck questioning Obama’s Christianity, insisting “I don’t really know what his version of Christianity is. But I don’t think it’s any of our business to judge other people’s religious faith. What? But Joe Scarborough definitely questioned the Christianity of ObamaCare opponents on July 21, 2009 as he pressed conservative Sens. Tom Coburn and John Barrasso:
SCARBOROUGH: In the ‘90s, everybody was wearing these "What Would Jesus Do" wrist bands. I wonder, what would Jesus think about walking in to any emergency room in any urban center at 11:00 or 12:00 at night and seeing all of these moms bringing their children from poor families who don't have health care having to use emergency rooms as their primary care. Is that a moral system? Is there a better way to do it? How do we do it? We can't just say no, can we?
On Monday morning, Scarborough begged Norquist to dispose of the notion that Beck was holding a religious rally:
SCARBOROUGH: I think those people were there more out of fear, fear of where Washington's heading than the people that were up on the stage. But Glenn Beck has said this was a religious rally. It wasn't a political rally. That's not really true, is it?
NORQUIST: I tend to think most of the people were coming there because they were speaking to the concern and fear that people have about all the massive spending and debt that's been coming down the pike. And he was making religious comments. I guess it's helpful after the Romney campaign where there was so much anti-Mormon bigotry sort of under the surface that Beck, who's a Mormon, could comfortably participate in a movement like that and perhaps we're beginning to put anti-Mormon bigotry behind us.
SCARBOROUGH: But, but now we have anti-Muslim bigotry and you actually --
NORQUIST: They are sticking with the M's.
SCARBOROUGH: You actually have Glenn Beck questioning Barack Obama's version of Christianity. Now I really don't know what his version of Christianity is. But I don't think it is any of our business to judge other people's religious faith. I said it last week about Muslims and the week before about Muslims. I say it now about Glenn Beck, the day after this rally, questioning somebody's version of Christianity. Isn't there something a bit ominous about that and sort of throwing the Muslim shadow on Barack Obama? Because he thinks -- I don't think -- he thinks that's a bad thing.
NORQUIST: it's an interesting question, because when the mosque in New York came up, the Forward newspaper, the Jewish newspaper in New York pointed out that in history, in Manhattan under the Dutch and the British, synagogues were illegal. So the sort of -- People have been through this. When the anti-Mormon feeling was very strong in the United States, when UItah wanted to send a senator, a Mormon leader senator to congress -- to the Senate, it took four years of hearings before he was seated. And in New York, Mormon missionaries were banned by the mayor. So when people look at modern political uses of religious bigotry, we've been there before with the Mormons. We've been there before with the Jews. And you sort of hope that people whose own religious heritages have been hit by that would recognize what is happening and speak out, as many are doing.
The article Norquist seems to be citing, by Brandeis professor Jonathan Sarna, isn’t quite as black and white as Norquist suggested. Stuyvesant, Sarna wrote, wanted Jews barred from the colony, but “Stuyvesant's superiors in Holland overruled him, citing economic and political considerations.” In any case, comparing peaceful Jewish immigrants in the 1650s to Ground Zero after 3,000 Americans died is a flawed analogy.
From there, Mika Brzezinski pressed Norquist to declare that something more “substantive and productive” than anti-socialist fears was driving this protest:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: But real quickly, what is the next step? Are you with a president who feels this is perhaps someone, a couple of people capitalizing on fears during tough economic times where there are many fears? Was it being driven by that, or something more substantive and productive? Was there a second sentence or --
SCARBOROUGH: What is the follow-up? Yeah.
NORQUIST: The follow-up, this is one of many rallies. I'm not a fan of national rallies. I would rather have had 300,000 people in 300 congressional districts with thousand-person rallies because that's how you changes things and make real progress.
About ten minutes into the 6 A.M, Brzezinski noted that according to Gallup, Obama's highest approval rating is among Muslims (78 percent, compared to 60 percent of Jews, 50 percent of Catholics, 43 percent among Protestants, and just 24 percent among Mormons). She insisted she liked Obama talking about his faith to defend himself and accused conservatives of "promulgating evil" by suggesting Obama's a Muslim:
I would say some even want it to be worse. It's wrong, and incorrect and basically promulgating, I think, evil when you're lying that way about someone's heritage and then leaving -- and about their faith and leaving kind of a dark nasty cloud over it and that is exactly what is happening. It is nothing less. And it should be condemned.
