MSNBC's Jen Psaki comments blaming Republicans for concerns expressed by the Muslim community about LGBTQ curriculum being taught to children as young as elementary school were challenged by a leader one of the largest Islamic organizations in the U.S.
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, the national deputy director at the Council for American-Islamic Relations, said the Islamic faith community is concerned about allegiance to God, not Psaki's preferred politics.
Psaki during her Sunday show also attempted to scare Muslims from being purportedly "recruit[ed]" by the GOP in opposing LGBTQ curriculum they found "age-inappropriate." A similar MSNBC narrative ran on June 21, and was also blasted by Mitchell as "ludicrous" for portraying Muslim parents as "dupes" for the political right.
He added it was time for "liberal commentators" like Psaki "to accept that Muslim parents are independent, intelligent people speaking for themselves."
"The sooner they accept this truth, the sooner they can start addressing the substantive concerns these parents are raising. Then again, maybe they just can't and don't want to address the concerns these parents are raising," he said.
The former White House press secretary claimed on her Sunday show, "Inside with Jen Psaki," that the Republican Party was dividing Muslims from transgender people, and listed why she believed the GOP was a danger to the Muslim community.
"[T]he right wing is reviving that same playbook, this time with Muslim Americans and trans people," Psaki said. "The GOP is trying to recruit Muslim Americans… against another tiny marginalized group of Americans, transgender people."
Mitchell, while criticizing the segment, accused Psaki of viewing the Islamic faith community as "political puppets."
OREGON SCHOOL DISTRICT BOOKS CONTAIN PORNOGRAPHIC IMAGERY OF SEX ACTS, ACCORDING TO PORTAL
"Bismillah (with God's help).[Psaki] is absolutely correct to note that the political right has spent years denigrating Muslim Americans… Psaki is incorrect about everything else, particularly her claim that the right is manipulating Muslims into targeting other minorities," he said.
"For one thing, Muslim Americans are not political puppets. Most of us are independent thinkers who could care less what the political right (or political left) want us to do," Mitchell added. "[M]ost of us are speaking up for what we think is right for the sake of God's pleasure, not at the urging of a political party."
The CAIR executive then added that Muslims are not targeting transgender people and have not been expressing bigotry against any marginalized community. It was purely a religious freedom issue, according to Mitchell, to protect children from sexualized curriculum.
"[T]he Muslim parents who have been addressing public school issues are not ‘going after’ anyone. Most parents are respectfully standing up for their own rights and the rights of their children without denigrating anyone else," he said.
Mitchell raised how parents are speaking out in Maryland for the right to be able to opt their children out of "age-inappropriate" and "morally objectionable" LGBTQ curriculum that is introduced to children as early as elementary school.
In Dearborn, Michigan, Muslim parents objected to "extremely sexually explicit books."
"One of the books meant for children included a cartoonish drawing of a naked man and a detailed list of various suggested sexual acts with their definitions, including one so crude and graphic that I cannot bring myself to write it," he said about the book.
Another book, "All Boys Aren't Blue," discussed watching pornography and sex acts.
"As an avid porn watcher, the only thing I knew about anal sex previously was that it was painful, or at least played up as such on the cameras," the book said. "I was in pain for nearly three weeks following that encounter and too afraid to go to the doctor for help because I would have had to tell them I had been having anal sex."
Prominent Democrats, the Biden White House as well as teacher's unions, have defended books containing extremely sexually explicit images and passages, claiming it helps LGBTQ kids feel included in classroom content.
Some parents, however, have accused their districts of presenting children with sexual material of no educational merit while under the guise of proclaimed inclusion.
Biden's Department of Education Office of Civil Rights recently investigated a district for banning such books, including one that discussed "bestiality."
It ruled that the district, in so doing, "may have created a… racially and sexually hostile environment." The DOE reached this conclusion despite acknowledging "the District limited its book screening process to sexually explicit material."
Fox News Digital has also reported that an American Federation of Teachers partner, FirstBook, was sending explicit books – including some with sexual imagery – to schools for free or at very low cost.
Mitchell said, about Psaki's segment, "Muslim parents didn't imagine books like this out of thin air nor did they need the political right to tell them that such content had no place in a public school. Muslim parents recognized that all on their own."
The director of the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team for the Religious Freedom Institute, Ismail Royer, told Fox News Digital that Psaki's remarks were insulting to Muslims.
"The left wants to scare Muslims into accepting its indoctrination of our children in exchange for a smile and pat on the head," Royer said. "They insult Muslims by portraying us as having no agency or intelligence but can’t imagine that we’ve weighed the bargain they offer us and rejected it."
MSNBC was contacted for comment and did not immediately respond.
