THE nATIVISTS NEVER CHANGE...:

First, in the past when Americans wanted to seriously undermine a minority faith they didn't merely argue that it was an untrue religion but that it wasn't a religion at all. Samuel Morse, the inventor of the Morse code and the telegraph, led attacks on Catholics in the nineteenth century by saying that "Popery" was less a religion that "a Political system, despotic in its organization, anti-democratic and anti-republican, cannot therefore coexist with American republicanism." A few decades later, Mormonism was described in similar ways--"an immoral and quasi criminal conspiracy," as the Kalamazoo Telegraph put it.

Now listen to how Islam has been described by modern American anti-Islam activists. "Islam is a political ideology. It definitely hides behind being a religion," said Michael Flynn, President Trump's first national security advisor, in 2016. That same year, a poll found that only half of Republicans said Islam should be legal in America.

In case there was any ambiguity about why this distinction was important, Lieutenant General William G. "Jerry" Boykin, an anti-Muslim activist and former Pentagon official, explained in 2010 that since Islam is "a totalitarian way of life," it "should not be protected under the First Amendment."

Second, practitioners of particular minority religions could not assimilate, we were told. An editorial in the Missouri Commercial Appeal took this tactic in describing Mormons: "Their manners, customs, religion and all, [Mormons] are more obnoxious to our citizens than those of the Indians, and they can never live among us in peace." An anti-Mormon group in Carroll County in 1838 complained that too many Mormons came from across the border. (No, the other border). "It is impossible that the two communities can long live together," wrote the Signal. "They can never assimilate." To these writers, the Mormons were alien and dangerous. The next month the governor of the state, Lilburn Boggs, issued a rule that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated and driven from the State if necessary for the public peace."

Three days later, about 250 Missourians, including a state senator, went to a small community called Haun's Mill and massacred 17 Mormons.

At other moments in history, Catholics, Jews, and other European immigrants were also thought to be unassimilable too.

In modern times, anti-Islam activists have claimed, against evidence, that Muslims are particularly unable to assimilate. When the Islamic Society of Milwaukee applied for permission to build a mosque, a rally was held where one resident explained that "a mosque is a Trojan Horse in a community. Muslims have not come to integrate but to dominate." Donald Trump made it explicit. "I'm talking about second and third generation," Donald Trump said during the 2016 campaign. "They come--they don't--for some reason, there's no real assimilation."

In thwarting religious freedom, Americans have accused adherents of minority faiths of having dual allegiances. When Al Smith, a Catholic, ran for president in 1928, cartoons depicted him as kissing the ring of--or serving the liquor to--the pope whom, it was assumed, would be calling the shots. The newly constructed Holland Tunnel in New York was supposedly going to provide the pontiff ready access to America. Jews have long been subject to a similar charge, initially that they would put global Jewry above loyalty to country, and more recently that they would put the interests of Israel over that of America--criticisms that were reflected in the recent comments by Rep. Ilhan Omar that "the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country."

In the twenty-first century, the most pervasive dual loyalty charge has been against American Muslims, like Rep. Omar. They are, we are told, required by their faith to follow Sharia, the broad set of Islamic religious rules, akin to Catholic Canon Law or Halacha rules influencing some Orthodox Jews. Brigitte Gabriel, leader of ACT for America, one of the leading anti-Islam groups, has said, "A practicing Muslim who believes the word of the Koran to be the word of Allah, who abides by Islam, who goes to mosque and prays every Friday, who prays five times a day--this practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America."

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