Goode stands by anti-Islam letter

U.S. Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. will not apologize to upset Islamic groups for a letter he wrote that decries the migration of Muslims to America, his press aide said today.

"He stands by the letter," said Linwood Duncan, aide to the 5th District Republican.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded an apology for the letter, which Goode, of Rocky Mount, sent to hundreds of constituents and which the council labeled Islamophobic.

"We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country,"

Goode wrote. "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped."

Corey Saylor, national legislative director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, condemned the letter. "Representative Goode's Islamophobic remarks send a message of intolerance that is unworthy of anyone elected to public office," Saylor said. "There can be no reasonable defense for such bigotry."

Duncan said Goode wrote the letter earlier this month in response to hundreds of e-mails he had received from constituents concerned about Muslim Rep.-elect Keith Ellison's decision to use the Koran in his swearing-in ceremony. After one of the letters miscarried, its contents have been plastered online across the blogosphere.

"I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way," Goode wrote in the letter's opening paragraph. "The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens

don't wake up

and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office

and demanding the use of the Koran."

SOURCE

Finally a politician with a spine.