OPINION:
Teresa Shook, one of the Women’s March co-founders who early on organized a gender-based resistance to all-things-President Donald Trump — by coalescing around a “Unity Principles” message of tolerance and diversity — is now calling for her group’s leadership to step down, saying their anti-Semitism, anti-gayness, anti-LGBTQ rights are all too much to bear.
But with Linda Sarsour as a leader, one has to wonder: What did you expect?
Sarsour, after all, has certainly been vetted in the media. Her duplicitous talk is well-known.
“On LBGTQ Rights, Linda Sarsour is No Ally,” read one June 2017 headline in The Forward, a news source for American Jews.
That piece went on to note that Sarsour “does not raise the flag of LGBTQ rights, or any other human rights for that matter, in the Muslim world … that she is sympathetic to the way women are treated in Saudi Arabia, saying that the Saudis put Americans to shame when it comes to women’s rights [despite] in Saudi … it is important to remember, women are not allowed to drive cars or leave the house without the permission of a man.”
There are more clues.
“Pro-LGBT Muslim Group Kicked Out of Muslim Conference Where Linda Sarsour Spoke,” reported The American Spectator in July, 2017.
“Linda Sarsour Is Dangerous, So Let’s All Stop Pretending Otherwise,” ran a Huffington Post headline, that same month. That piece went on to say, “[I]f the Democrats were smart, they’d run far away from Linda Sarsour. This is a woman who said that Ayaan Hirsi Ali — who was a victim of [female genital mutilation] … deserves to have her vagina taken away.”
That’s the Huffington Post, for crying out loud, a news outlet hardly to be confused with conservatives in tone.
Then there was this, from the New York Post, just this month: “Don’t join this year’s Women’s March unless you’re good with anti-Semitism.”
Allowing this woman anywhere near an organization with a supposed compass of unity and tolerance just baffles.
This, as another of the Women’s March co-founders, Tamika Mallory, was condemned by the likes of actresses Alyssa Milano and Debra Messing for failing to condemn Louis Farrakhan and anti-Semitic statements he’s made that include, most recently, just this October, comparing Jews to termites.
“Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez of Women’s March, Inc. have steered the Movement away from its true course,” Shook wrote in a Facebook post. “In opposition to our Unity Principles, they have allowed anti-Semitism, anti-LGBTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform by their refusal to separate themselves from groups that espouse these racist, hateful beliefs. I call for the current Co-Chairs to step down and to let others lead who can restore faith in the Movement and its original intent.”
Nice sentiment — but perhaps a case of too little, too late?
After all, Sarsour, for one, has been an openly intolerant wolf draped in pretend-tolerance sheep’s clothing for some time. She never should have been embraced as a leader of an American Women’s March movement in the first place.
That she was just shows how rooted in delusion and deception, and yes even ignorance, this movement has been from the beginning.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.