U.S. Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) said Americans will have to confront a difficult constitutional question as debate over Sharia law and religious liberty intensifies around McKinney’s mosque project.
“That is probably the key question that we are going to have to get at as Americans,” Self told Sarah Zubiate-Bennett during a new segment of Let’s Talk Local.
The discussion centered on McKinney, where the City Council voted 7-0 on August 4 to approve a 32,573-square-foot mosque and Islamic center after city staff found the revised site plan complied with existing zoning and development rules.
Councilman Patrick Cloutier had described the council’s role as administrative and warned that rejecting a compliant plan could expose the city to serious legal risk, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Zubiate-Bennett asked Self how communities should address concerns about Sharia law while respecting the First Amendment.
Self said the First Amendment protects religion, speech and assembly, but he distinguished personal beliefs from conduct.
“The government can’t monitor those. Can’t tell you what to do,” Self said of individual matters of faith. “On the other hand, conduct under the law is governed.”
Self, a West Point graduate who later served as Collin County judge, also discussed how his Army career took him into Muslim-majority environments, including Egypt, Afghanistan and Qatar. He said those assignments gave him repeated exposure to Islamic culture.
The conversation also revisited Zubiate-Bennett’s earlier Let’s Talk Local interview with Sam Westrop, director of Islamist Watch at the Middle East Forum, about Sharia-compliant finance and Islamist networks in Texas.
Zubiate-Bennett told Self that her own comparative analysis had identified potential institutional connections involving McKinney and asked whether he had addressed those connections when he spoke before the City Council.
Self said he had not.
“I had two minutes,” Self said, explaining that he used the limited time to focus on history rather than the alleged institutional ties.
The full Let’s Talk Local interview goes further into Self’s military background, the McKinney mosque controversy, Sharia finance and his views on where protected religious belief ends and conduct governed by American law begins.
Provided by Dallas Express
