Georgia mayor converts to Islam

According to Wikipedia, Macon, Georgia

is among the top five largest metropolitan areas in Georgia, and the county seat of Bibb County, It lies near the geographic center of Georgia, approximately 80 miles south of Atlanta, hence the city’s nickname as the Heart of Georgia. As of the 2000 census, Macon had a population of 97,255; as of 2005, the Macon-Warner Robins-Fort Valley combined statistical area had an estimated metropolitan population of 379,669

Yesterday, the Macon Telegraph reported:

Macon Mayor Jack Ellis has converted to Islam and is working to legally change his name to Hakim Mansour Ellis.

The mayor, raised as a Christian, said Thursday that he has been studying the Quran for years. He became a Sunni Muslim during a December ceremony in the country of Senegal, on the western coast of Africa. He said the religion originally was practiced by his West African ancestors before they were brought to America by slave traders.

In a well-ordered America, how would this issue be dealt with? First of all, in a well-ordered America, there would be no Incorporation Doctrine that had been illegitimately injected by judges into the Fourteenth Amendment applying the First Amendment to the states, and the states would thus remain entirely free to have any kind of establishment of religion or restrictions on religion that they deemed necessary and proper. In a well-ordered America, therefore, the respective states would be free to bar Muslims from holding public office, and they would do so.

However, the problem with this thought experiment is that even in the highly unlikely event that our federal structure and the proper scope of state power were restored in our lifetimes, the Islam challenge is pre-eminently a national issue and must be dealt with at that level, as discussed here.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 03, 2007 02:15 PM | Send