ACT! For America
ACT! For America is a citizen action network that was created "to give Americans concerned about national security, terrorism, and the threat of radical Islam, a powerful, organized, informed and mobilized voice." According to the Center for American Progress, ACT! For America is "one of the largest grassroots groups dedicated to targeting Muslims."[1]
Support for Islamophobia
The CAP has provided extensive documentation of ACT! for America's involvement in promoting anti-Muslim hysteria in the United States:
Brigitte Gabriel, founder of ACT! For America, has frequently made demagogic statements about Muslims and Arabs. For example, she claims that a "practicing Muslim who believes in the teaching of the Quran cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America." She has also crudely described the difference between Arabs (and Muslims) and Israelis in the following way: "It's barbarism versus civilization. It's democracy versus dictatorship. It's goodness versus evil." She similarly claimed in 2007 that Arabs and Muslims "have no soul. They are dead set on killing and destruction."
ACT! has recruited Guy Rodgers, who served as a consultant to the 2008 McCain campaign, to expand its base of activists and organizers. The organization routinely holds meetings to "bring interested activists together and train them with best practices." These meetings are called "Citizen in Action training conferences," which teach the attendees to effectively communicate "anti-Muslim messages" and provide tips on how to discover "suspicious activity" in the attendees' respective local communities. These grass-roots efforts have allowed ACT! to achieve vast membership. It currently claims to have 170,000 members in 53 different chapters across the world.
Annually ACT! holds a conference that brings together "speakers from the anti-Muslim movement's think tank core," some of which have included national review columnist Andrew McCarthy and Frank Gaffney.
Gabriel also has close relationships with prominent conservative lawmakers that have give her a powerful voice in promoting anti-Muslim legislation. She collaborated with Republican Rep. Sue Myrick to investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations and has lobbied for anti-Sharia bills in state legislatures. In 2009 ACT! launched its Stop Shariah Now project, which was intended to increase public awareness of "the manufactured threat of creeping Shariah into America."
ACT! was also instrumental in organizing opposition to the appointment of Muslim-American Parvez Ahmed to the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission."[1]
Contact Information
You can email us at: info@actforamerica.org
Our address is: P.O. Box 12765 Pensacola, FL 32591
For radio interviews: sandy@mystic-art.com
For all other media interviews (print, television or other) contact: info@actforamerica.org
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir, "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America, Center for American Progress, August 2011.
