DeSantis CAIR criticism harms Muslim Americans

Gov. Ron DeSantis demonizing CAIR Florida is a cruel, hateful and uninformed action that will result in harm to innocent Americans. In my view, that is its only purpose (“DeSantis declares Muslim civil rights group a terrorist organization,” Dec. 9).

CAIR Florida, which I see as no different from the NAACP, got an American teenager from Palm Bay returned to his family after being imprisoned in Israel for eight long months without charges. CAIR Florida has also cared for a family whose Tampa son, an ice cream shop owner, was brutally beaten to death; the organization is demanding justice for this young man after his assailants were questioned and released.

Not long ago a Muslim-American family was eating at an outdoor café in Sarasota when a man screamed obscenities and threats at them. When the family was not given a police report, CAIR Florida got it for them, and learned that the police said the man who attacked the family was a Black man from Jacksonville, when evidence showed the alleged attacker was a white businessman from Sarasota who hated Muslims.

Do any of these efforts by CAIR Florida smack of terrorism? But there is terrorism in this story. DeSantis has opened Florida’s door to Israeli businesses, including a drone factory in Tampa turning out 9,000 deadly weapons each month. DeSantis is creating fear and anger toward Muslims and Arab-Americans who are our doctors, our attorneys, our businessmen, who love our country, and love their religion of peace, justice, compassion and mercy. Now they are at the mercy of a merciless governor.

Dan Callaghan New Port Richey

Leaders attacking women’s rights

Women’s rights and our right to determine how we manage our health care continues to be challenged. The attorneys general of Florida and Texas filed a lawsuit targeting abortion drugs. In my opinion, the issue for both men isn’t abortion, it’s women.

If one were to take the time to read Project 2025, it is very clear that the objective is to align all federal agencies with “pro-life” policies, establishing abortion as not being health care. Furthermore, the document promotes the “tradwife” — traditional wife — which emphasizes female subservience to her husband, prioritizing bearing children over career building.

If you think “The Handmaid’s Tale” was fiction, think again. Margaret Atwood saw what was coming and created a tale set in a dystopian future where women are nothing more than baby machines.

If we allow this to continue, birth control will be next.

Violet Irminger Mount Dora

Why punish all immigrants?

A National Guard service member patrolling Washington, D.C., was recently killed by a man from Afghanistan — someone who was in the United States because he had helped American forces during our longest war. He didn’t kill because of politics; he killed because he was a disturbed individual.

The Trump administration’s knee-jerk response was to halt immigration from what the president called “third world countries.” That’s only a slight improvement from “s—hole countries,” a term he used in his first term and again recently.

I have a friend here on an asylum visa from one of those so-called countries. He works hard, obeys the law, pays taxes and supports his family — everything we say we value in Americans.

I understand the impulse to act after tragedy. But we need a scalpel, not a meat cleaver. Punishing thousands of innocent people is not policy — it’s panic. And it’s un-American.

George Devitt Maitland

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