Nezar Hamze is the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations of South Florida. He is also, he told the salon.com website, a longtime registered Republican who wants to “fight the myth of the Muslim vote being Democratic.”
And that made him the latest flashpoint in a battle over Islam within the GOP.
In August, Hamze, 35, submitted an application to become a voting member of the Broward County Republican Executive Committee, a body within which he would like to organize the Muslim Republican club.
“A lot of Muslims I know, their values really line up with the conservative values of the Republican party,” Hamze said. “I’m a strict social conservative, a fiscal conservative, a very strict constitutionalist. The protection of civil liberties for all Americans is supreme.”
He was not exactly welcomed with open arms, salon.com reported. Following a report on Hamze’s plans on Shark Tank, a right-leaning Florida politics website, he was attacked as un-American by some commentators.
For example, Sarasota radio host Rich Swier wrote on his blog: “Mr. Hamze, if he is a true believer, would not embrace the US Constitution as supreme because it is accepted Islamic doctrine, under Sharia, that the Qoran must supersede any document written by man.”
Another blogger went so far as to suggest that Shark Tank might be “a Hamas sympathizer and organizer” because the website gave a straightforward report on Hamze’s plans and did not condemn him.
Hamze’s father came to the United States from Lebanon during the civil war there. Hamze himself was born in Michigan and grew up in south Florida. He called the idea that he does not believe in the Constitution because he is Muslim “baseless garbage.”
At the Broward County Republican meeting Monday night, Hamze’s request was rejected on a vote of 11-158. In other words, fewer than 7 percent of those voting supported a Muslim Republican group.
Before the vote, the county party changed its rules to require that each applicant face questions. Audience members then got up to denounce CAIR as a terrorist organization and to ask if Hamze supported terrorism.
After the vote, Hamze said he wished he had just received a letter of rejection rather than face such a hostile barrage.