OFMI Attacks Religious Minorities in America
Tulsi Gabbard consistently fights against religious bigotry and sectarianism
OFMI(Organization for Minorities in India) and political operative Pieter Friedrich continue to try to claim that Tulsi Gabbard supports extreme political positions and figures in India with association fallacies.
Tulsi Gabbard was assigned to and serves on House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, determining policy that directly impacts the entire world. Visiting with foreign leaders falls cleanly within the jurisdiction of her responsibilities to her constituents and to our country.
Tulsi has met with Narendra Modi to foster stronger US/India relations. Tulsi also met with Modi’s political opposition Shashi Tharoor, and Rajeev Gowda. In July of 2017 Gabbard announced a sister state partnership between Hawaii and Goa India as part of increased trade between the two largest democracies.
Tulsi has rejected the very idea of religious bigotry and sectarianism that is dark and insidious wherever it appears, whether in India, the United States or anywhere else.
“ A pluralist secular government is the only way to ensure that all individuals have the freedom to follow the religious or non-religious path of our choice.” — Tulsi Gabbard
People often use association fallacies to attack another when they don’t have any other line of attack. This is blatantly obvious when you take into consideration that no other that met with Narendra Modi is being criticized in this manner.
For instance, they say that Tulsi (B) met with this big scary bad man (A) and therefore supports everything the bad man and all their followers/citizens do(C), some go farther and claim that Tulsi is controlled by the big scary man.
The logic of an association fallacy Premise A is a B; Premise A is also a C; Conclusion, Therefore, all Bs are Cs.
This is faulty reasoning.
When OFMI claims that Tulsi supports extreme political positions and figures in India they conveniently leave out that Obama met with Modi eight times, so much that the media started calling it a “bromance”.
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President Obama, President Trump, Prime Minister Imran Khan, President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, President Xi Jinping, Muslim religious leaders, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, multiple U.S. Congress members, and many others have all welcomed Prime Minister Modi with open arms.
Not a single one of these people has ever been criticized for meeting with Modi or criticized for India’s politics.
So why is Tulsi Gabbard, who is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Congress and is responsible for helping establish diplomatic relations with leaders around the world, criticized for meeting with Modi?
There is only one answer: Anti-Hindu bigotry. Because Tulsi is one of several hundred million people who identify as Hindu and Modi is also Hindu, the anti-Hindu haters find fault with her meeting for no logical reason other than her Hindu religion. Hinduphobia is no less insidious than Islamophobia, anti-Semitism or any other bigotry.
“Both in India and here in the US, I have held meetings with members of both the BJP and the Congress Party. As a member of the US Congress, my interest is in helping produce a closer relationship between the United States and India, not just between the United States and one political party of India. Sometimes people on both sides, for their own purposes, try to say I somehow favor, or am part, of the BJP or take photos of me at Indian events and circulate them for their own promotional reasons. But the fact is, I’m not partial to BJP, the Congress Party, or any other particular political party in India.” — Tulsi Gabbard
The OFMI supposedly speaks for religious minorities, yet they attacked a religious minority in America, using lies that are easily debunked using publicly available information.
Contrary to their claims, Tulsi resigned from the 2018 World Hindu Congress days after Bhagwat became involved and several months prior to OFMI calling on her to do what had already been done. Now, are they claiming they made her do step down and continue to use logical fallacies to blame her for things that happen in India.
One of Tulsi’s supporters reached out to her campaign to clarify if the campaign had contacted OFMI to correct this misinformation they are spreading: Tulsi’s campaign manager Erika Tsuji responded with,
“Unfortunately, this is mudslinging and Hinduphobia at its worst. Sadly, rather than celebrate love and aloha as Tulsi tries to do every day (and was demonstrated in her unifying keynote address at the Muslims for Peace Conference: https://youtu.be/HQ6_YdIsGi4), this group is more interested in spreading lies, hate, and division. We have reached out to OFMI to correct the misinformation, but they have been unresponsive because they are not interested in the truth — they only want to spread lies and are providing a great disservice to the people of Hawaii in their attempts to influence our primary election.”
Because this same attack was sent via email to all Democratic Party of Hawaii members, during the recent primary election, it is clear that this mainland group was coordinating with someone here in Hawaii, most likely a candidate in the race who has access to the voter list and emails of Democratic Party members.
It appears that this just another political hit piece and the Organization for Minorities is criticizing another’s religious freedom. This is the height of hypocrisy.
If you want to know Tulsi’s stance on religious freedom, please watch Tulsi’s keynote speech at the 2016 Reason Rally. This speech goes into depth as to how she strongly stands for secularism and religious freedom for all:
I encourage you to learn more about Tulsi Gabbard and not fall for logical fallacies and nonsense.
