The Case for Assimilation, or I'm Tired of Having to Appease Islamists

In a few short months, we will mark the 25th anniversary of September 11, the day when Islamic terrorists killed almost 4,000 of our fellow Americans simply because they hated us. The attacks came after decades of Islamic terrorism targeted Americans and others at home and abroad, and less than a decade after another Islamic terrorist bombed the World Trade Center.

These weren't military targets, although I am just as appalled by those deaths (and there have been far too many of those); they, at least, have the weaponry and training to attempt to fight back or exact revenge. These were men, women, and children. Many were simply working in the World Trade Center. Others were traveling to see family, on a vacation, or for business. They were civilians. And Islamists killed all of them. The youngest victim, Christine Lee Hanson, was just two years old. Countless other children lost one, or both, parents. Many children were born never knowing their fathers.

For me, I was 18 years old. While I lost no loved ones that day, I saw friends go off to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and my entire adult life was forever transformed thanks to the legislation passed after 9/11. Islamic terrorism cost more than lives that day; it took away many of our freedoms.

In the years after 9/11, the biggest mistake of the George W. Bush administration was his insistence on portraying Islam as a religion of peace. It's not, and we have millennia of history to prove it. Yet, a quarter of a century later, we seem to have forgotten the horrors of 9/11 and are allowing Islamist creep onto our shores and in our neighborhoods.

But thanks to the Left's toxic empathy, we're not allowed to criticize Islamists and we're certainly not allowed to demand their assimilation to our culture and our way of life. If we do, they play the victim card.

There is a reflex that kicks in when someone questions whether you belong. You start assembling evidence. You cite your credentials and your patriotism. When Rep. Andrew Ogles (R-Tennessee) declared last month that “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” I noticed this reflex in myself. I wanted to prove I belonged, for those who believed that I didn’t. I suspect many Muslim Americans did the same. We have gotten good at this over the years — too good.
Ogles is not alone. The Sharia-Free America Caucus has swelled to 60 House members. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) recently said, “I’m ready to get rid of the Muslims.” The instinct, when faced with this, is to marshal the evidence. Over the past decade, surveys have shown that American Muslims are patriotic, civically engaged and more likely than the U.S. general public to say that political violence is never justified. You’d think that would be enough. Except it shouldn’t have to be. And this is where it gets uncomfortable — for me, at least.
The assimilation defense — look how well we’ve integrated — is satisfying to make. But it concedes a premise I no longer accept: that a minority community’s right to be in the United States depends on its willingness to converge with the cultural mainstream. It shouldn’t depend on that. It shouldn’t depend on anything. But there’s something else going on that makes the picture messier. On the questions where Muslim Americans remain religiously conservative — sexuality, gender identity and family structure — their views don’t diverge much from the Republican base. They haven’t assimilated as much as liberals might like. You’d think Republicans would sense an electoral opportunity.

I've long argued that Islam is not a religion, but a sociopolitical movement that seeks to dominate the world. That Hamid sees and equates this to possible Republican votes proves my point. The problem with Islam is that its views on sexuality mean gays and trans individuals get killed, women are considered slaves and property in marriage, and young, prepubescent girls are married off to much older men.

Those are not Republican values, no matter how much the Left would like and insist they are. We simply ask for trans individuals to stay out of our locker rooms and sporting events; Islamists hurl them from buildings.

And many Islamists have also proven my point. In Germany, an imam said they'd start stoning German women for adultery once they install Sharia Law in Deutschland and, as I have in the past, I'll remind you here that being raped by an Islamist counts as "adultery" under their sick, twisted ideology. That means a lot of women will be stoned.

In Houston — a red state! — an imam has repeatedly demanded local businesses stop selling pork, alcohol, and lottery tickets because they're all haram under Sharia Law.

In Houston, Texas, an imam demands that a grocery store stop selling ‘haram’ products:

“You have 30 days to stop selling alcohol, pork, and gambling because it’s against Islam.”

Who gave him that power?

pic.twitter.com/KAwZfa9Zdn
— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) September 7, 2025

In Nashville, schools changed their schedule to accommodate Islamic prayer time.

This is happening in Nashville https://t.co/xHHDpQBSM2
— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) April 7, 2026

In parts of Europe, music instruction is being gutted so as not to offend the Muslims who hate music. Women are being asked to wear hijabs in "solidarity" with their Islamic conquerors, and Muslims tell the courts they raped women because they hail from countries where women simply don't have the right to not be sexually assaulted for walking on the street.

And in the last two months, we had five Islamic terror attacks on American soil, presumably from Islamists who didn't want to assimilate.

Hamid cynically says this is because Islam is a more public religion than Christianity. That's just not true. Christianity is, or was, very public in America. It's woven into our very national foundation. Our holidays are based on the Christian calendar; God is mentioned on our currency and in our Pledge of Allegiance. Leftists have, under the guise of "separation of church and state" worked to remove Christianity from the public sphere. When we erect Nativity scenes on public lands, they sue. When we have public prayers, they sue. They attack openly Christian bakers and therapists and nuns with legislation that targets and undermines the Christian faith.

They don't do the same with Islam. No one sued Zohran Mamdani for holding an Eid celebration at the end of Ramadan. The Freedom From Religion Foundation will not be suing Nashville schools for accommodating Islamic prayers. No consideration is given to the other faiths in those schools, or to the atheists. They expect us to shut up, sit down, and just take it.

That we have is our fault, and the need for a louder, larger Christian public presence is pressing. But that's a topic for another column.

Islam stands in direct contradiction to the values of America, to our freedoms, and to our culture. Hamid and his fellow Muslims are free to pray, to fast, and to practice their faith. They are not free to impose any of that on the rest of us. But impose they are, aided and abetted by Leftists who think they can use Islamists to destroy America and suffer no consequences for it.

If Islamists refuse to assimilate, they should go to nations where Islam is the prevailing religion and culture. That's where they'll fit in, and they won't have to prove anything. But they don't, because fitting in is not the point. Domination is.

But I suppose I should thank Hamid, because he's now made the case against Muslim immigration better than I ever could have.