A Republican candidate in a tight race to unseat the Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate told supporters that the country needs to address a "militant terrorist situation" that has allowed Islamic religious law to take hold in some American cities.
Sharron Angle's made her comments at rally last week with members of the tea party _ a looseknit coalition of conservatives and anti-government libertarians _ after the candidate was asked about Muslims angling to take over the country.
"My thoughts are these, first of all, Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas are on American soil, and under constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don't know how that happened in the United States," she said. "It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States."
Dearborn, Michigan, has a thriving Muslim community. It was not immediately clear why Angle singled out Frankford, Texas, a former town that was annexed into Dallas around 1975.
Her comments marked the latest of several controversial remarks by the Nevada Republican, a Southern Baptist, who has called herself a faith-based politician. She opposes abortion in all circumstances, including rape and incest and doesn't believe the Constitution requires the separation of church and state.
Angle is in a dead-heat race against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. A recent poll showed Reid and Angle tied in the high-profile campaign.
She also drew comparisons between the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Nazi Holocaust. She said the property owners behind the proposed Islamic community center near ground zero should move it in deference to the people who died there.
"There was, in Auschwitz, I think it was Auschwitz, it was at least a prisoner of war camp, where the Catholic Church owned some property and they were going to build a church there. They had every right to do it but they stepped aside and said, no, we are going to allow the Jewish people to make a monument because they lost lives," she said.
Angle seemed to be referring to a Roman Catholic convent at the Auschwitz death camp that Pope John Paul II ordered moved in 1993 in response to Jewish protests.
Ibrahaim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based advocacy group, called Angle's statements "bizarre."
"This seems to be an example of incoherent bigotry. It is pretty clear that she has something against Islamic Muslims but she is so incoherent you don't know what she stands for," Hooper said. "The proper response would have been, 'American Muslims are citizens like anyone else. They are free to practice their faith,' not seeming to agree that Muslims are somehow seeking to take over."