- Republicans mocked a bill by Rep. Omar to create a special envoy to combat Islamophobia worldwide.
- "How about those that are gay, you know, the LGBTQ community? That should be part of this bill," said one Republican.
- The vote comes as progressives call for Lauren Boebert to be punished for her Islamophobic comments.
In the wake of Rep. Lauren Boebert's Islamophobic comments suggesting that Rep. Ilhan Omar was a suicide bomber, House Republicans spent much of a Thursday hearing mocking a bill put forth by the Muslim Minnesota congresswoman to combat Islamophobia worldwide.
"I have many Pennsylvania Dutch that feel that they're not treated properly," said Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, sarcastically calling for their inclusion in Omar's anti-Islamophobia bill. "How about those that are gay, you know, the LGBTQ community? That should be part of this bill."
"Let's keep going, you know, there are people that are overweight, and there are skinny kids that get picked on," Meuser added. "Why aren't they included in this as well?"
—Jeremy Slevin (@jeremyslevin) December 9, 2021
Rep. Omar's bill, which she introduced in late October alongside Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, would require the State Department to establish a special envoy for monitoring and combating Islamophobia and is modeled after a similar position created in 2004 to combat anti-Semitism.
"For over a decade we have seen increasing incidents of violent Islamophobia both in the US and worldwide — from the genocide of the Rohingya in Burma, and Uyghurs in China, to the attacks on Muslim refugees in Canada and New Zealand," Rep. Schakowsky said at the time.
Hate crimes against American Muslims saw a 17% spike in 2017, when then-President Trump imposed a travel ban most focused on majority-Muslim nations.
The bill ultimately passed the House Foreign Relations Committee on Friday, with every Democrat voting in favor and every Republican opposed, and is expected to head to a full House vote on Tuesday. Democratic leadership is reportedly considering a vote on the bill as way to respond to the Boebert controversy, even as progressive lawmakers have introduced a resolution to strip Boebert of her committees.
House Republican leaders, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, have declined to forcefully condemn Boebert's Islamophobic rhetoric or take any meaningful action against her.
Omar spoke tearfully about the experience at a November 30 press conference, playing a threatening, Islamophobic voicemail that she received after a phone call with Boebert went awry.
'Shameful and embarrassing'
On Thursday evening, Republicans used both proposed amendments to Omar's bill and comments during the hearing to mock both the bill and Omar herself, in addition to downplaying Islamophobia.
Republican Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio, who accidentally posted an image from an anti-Semitic website in 2017, said that Omar's bill would "trivialize" anti-Semitism, given the existence of another State Department post to combat that form of bigotry. "We should avoid such a dangerous false equivalency at all costs, as it could be used by some extremists to actually justify further anti-Semitic activity," said Chabot.
Republican Rep. Brian Mast said that he believed the bill, which is focused on acts of violence against Muslim populations abroad, was about targeting those who had "hurt somebody's feelings."
"If you ask 20 different people what Islamophobia means today, especially in the Democratic Party, you're going to get 20 different answers," said the Florida Republican. "And that answer is going to be what they decide best fits their political narrative to go out there and attack you."
And Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Ohio offered an amendment to specify that it "shall not be considered Islamophobia for an individual to criticize a brother marrying a sister for the purpose of committing immigration fraud in the United States," an apparent reference to long-standing right-wing conspiracy theories about the congresswoman.
As of publication time, the amendment was no longer available on the House Foreign Relations Committee website and was presumably withdrawn. Rep. Buck's office did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
But other amendments by Buck, including one mentioning female genital mutilation, remained online. Another amendment offered by Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania sought to exclude "any action (to include counter-terrorism measures) taken by the Israeli Government" from the bill.
In a statement to Insider, Omar condemned Republican behavior during the hearing.
"It is shameful and embarrassing that the Republican Party's response to blatant Islamophobia and incitement of violence is to double down on anti-Muslim rhetoric," she said. "Instead of engaging in a good faith discussion on how to address the rise of Islamophobic violence, Republicans engaged in ad hominem attacks, belittled Muslims, and minimized the pain of Muslim communities around the world."
And Democrats on the committee sought to defend Omar's bill.
"One reason the United States is doing a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics in China is because China's engaging in a genocide of Muslims, of the Uyghurs, because of their religion," said Rep. Ted Lieu of California. "The Rohingya in Burma were slaughtered because they were Muslims."
He also called attention to Boebert's Islamophobic remarks.
"We had a congressmember from the Republican Party joke about a congressmember in the Democratic Party, that somehow she was a terrorist simply because of a religion," Lieu said. "That's Islamophobia."