ACT! for America
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| Founded | 2007 |
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| Website | actforamerica.org |
ACT! for America, founded in 2007, is a U.S.-based anti-Muslim, pro-Trump group, dedicated to combating what it describes as 'the threat of radical Islam' to the safety of Americans and to democracy".
Critics of the group accuse it of being an anti-Muslim hate group and Islamophobic. The group's founder, Brigitte Gabriel, has said that she is not anti-Muslim.
The group's founder and central figure is the Lebanese-born Brigitte Gabriel who is also a frequent speaker at conservative events. Guy Rodgers — a Republican consultant who was National Field Director for the Christian Coalition of America in the 1990s — is executive director. The group was established in 2007, and grew out of the American Congress for Truth, which Gabriel established in 2002 to promote her beliefs, books, and public appearance. The American Congress for Truth was later renamed Act! for America Education and "continues to operate as a separate non-profit tax-exempt organization."
ACT! members have introduced David Yerushalmi's anti-foreign law bill (also known as anti-Shariah bill) in several state legislatures, accompanying it with "a public outreach blitz about the 'threat' of Sharia to America." Gabriel has promoted the idea that there is an Islamic conspiracy in the United States, stating that "tens of thousands of Islamic militants now reside in America operating in sleeper cells, attending our colleges and universities, even infiltrating our government" and asserting that radicalized Muslims "have infiltrated us at the CIA, at the FBI, at the Pentagon, at the State Department."
ACT! has lobbied state and federal officials, seeking "to impact national security policy." These officials include U.S. Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, who appeared on ACT!'s "internet television show before hosting a series of hearings on radicalization that singled out Muslims in 2011". It once counted former U. S. National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn as a member of its board; Flynn has criticized Islam in ways similar to ACT!, such as that the Muslim faith itself is one of the root causes of Islamist terrorism; that Islam as a political ideology rather than a religion; that it is a malignant cancer; and that "fear of Muslims is rational." The group has published voter guides and congressional scorecards, and as of 2014 employed a full-time congressional lobbyist, Lisa Piraneo, who is the group's director of government relations.
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