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Leader's response to controversy is wrong

Ginny Brown-Waite has made a political career of knowing when to choose her battles. From breaking ranks with her party about suing tobacco companies while a state senator, to opposing the government's interference in the Terry Schiavo feeding tube controversy, to supporting federal funding of stem cell research, the congresswoman has often been a shrewd and courageous legislator whom constituents can count on to be concerned and candid.

But the 63-year-old Republican from Brooksville stained her reputation last week when she defended the indefensible comments of a well-known Hernando County couple who callously insulted an entire religion.

By mischaracterizing the controversy as an issue of free speech and allowing her apparent grudge against an individual to cloud her judgment, Brown-Waite has fanned the flames of bigotry and discredited the 5th Congressional District, which includes much of Pasco County.

In a long-winded, antagonistic letter, Brown-Waite condemned the Council on American-Islamic Relations and executive director Ahmed Bedier for asking her to denounce comments made by Mary Ann and Tom Hogan Sr., an interim Hernando County commissioner. The Hogans are leaders of the Hernando Republican Party. Mary Ann Hogan, who initially complained about a county employee delivering rented children's toys to an event at the local mosque, wrote a letter to the editor in which she said Islam is a "hateful, frightening religion," Muslims are "barbarians" and that "helping to promote the Muslim religion is immoral and un-American." Her husband echoed his wife's comments, and both have rejected pleas to apologize.

Gov. Jeb Bush, governor-elect Charlie Crist and the head of the Republican Party of Florida, Carole Jean Jordan, along with the balance of the Hernando Commission, have decried the Hogans for brazenly stereotyping all followers of Islam.

Instead of addressing the essence of the mean-spirited comments, Brown-Waite is portraying the issue as an attempt by CAIR to quash the Hogans' constitutional right to free speech.

She also is lashing out at Bedier, with whom she apparently has a history of confrontation and distrust. In the process, she repeats some of the same stereotypes and casually dismissed the Hogans' skewed opinions by saying only that their remarks "do not encourage harmony in the community." That is an understatement.

No one, including CAIR, has questioned the Hogans' First Amendment right to free speech. But that right applies to everyone equally, including CAIR and Brown-Waite.

At the same time, the congresswoman must realize that with the high office she holds comes the expectation that she choose her words carefully and that those words do not malign whole groups of her constituents.

Brown-Waite's stance, conveniently taken after she was re-elected to a third term last Tuesday, is irresponsible.

It emboldens others to jump on the bandwagon of bigotry.

Hernando County already has a rich history of prejudice and intolerance, some of it recent. This turmoil, and Brown-Waite's decision to praise the Hogans for their "tremendous fortitude," only reinforces that image.

When Brown-Waite states that most people in the 5th District agree with such narrow-minded opinions about Muslims, she seriously misjudges her constituency.

This time, she picked the wrong battle and the wrong side.

[Last modified November 14, 2006, 07:08:28]