Fox News host Brian Kilmeade said on Monday during “Fox & Friends” that he hoped a Muslim American could still salute the flag.
Kilmeade’s comments were made during a conversation about the first black woman to be appointed assistant chief of police in Miami. The president of a police union there recently called for the woman, Anita Najiy, to be removed after video surfaced earlier this month showing her standing at attention instead of with her hand over her heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. The police union head, Sgt. Javier Ortiz, went as far as to write a letter saying that Najiy was a Muslim who denounced America.
During the conversation on Fox, host Steve Doocy mentioned the accusation that Najiy is Muslim.
“The fraternal order of police president suggests this could have been a religious decision,” Doocy said. “He has suggested that perhaps she is a Muslim. That is not known.”
“If you’re a Muslim, I hope it still means you can salute the flag, put your hand on your heart,” co-host Brian Kilmeade interjected. “What does that have to do with it?”
“Well, you know, that would be a great question to ask,” co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck said. “And so is it our right to know why someone would opt-out of that? How does it make you feel if that is indeed your district? Would you want to know? And now they’re asking for her position to be taken from her, for her to be fired.”
Kilmeade did provide an explanation for Najiy’s action, pointing out that it’s possible to have an “absence of mind,” but Doocy disagreed.
“I think that she has done this on more than one occasion,” Doocy said. “And that’s why the fraternal order of police president was taking a picture of her doing that to say, look, she does it all the time.”
Watch the video below, courtesy of Fox News:
h/t Raw Story
I love how absolutely obsessed these folks are with gesture-based patriotism litmus tests.
The STUPID,…
it burns.
This reminds me of when they were questioning Obama’s patriotism because he would go a day or two without wearing a flag pin on his lapel.
Meanwhile, Republicans would forget them twice as often without notice.
Anyone else feel like this is part of a witch hunt to get a Black woman removed from a position of authority? I remember one kid in school complaining because I did not say the Pledge when everyone else does. Personally, I don’t need a pledge to be patriotic, but since he complained so much I started saying it- in Latin.
I’m so tired of these unpatriotic fascists equating gestures with patriotism.
“What does that have to do with it?”
This from the same people who insist that the insertion of “under God” into the pledge in the 1950’s as a way of flipping the bird at “godless commies” is a reference to the Krischun god and proof that Amurikkka is a Krischun Nashun etc. etc. something something the First Amendment only applies to everyone else’s religion?