Muslim running for congress

Aspirant for Indiana seat wants to combat “ignorance about his faith” as a Muslim running for congress

Ken Kusmer with the Associated Press reported Thursday, Feb. 14, on a Baptist convert to Islam who “stands an election victory away” from making a mark as the second of his faith ever elected to the U.S. Congress.

Andre Carson, the Democratic Party nominee, seeks to succeed his late grandmother, Julia Carson, of Indiana’s 7th District, who died of lung cancer recently.

The special election would fill the seat for the remaining of her sixth term March 11, expiring at the end of 2008.

If Andre Carson wins the Democratic-leaning Indianapolis district over a freshman Republican legislator and a long-shot Libertarian candidate, he would join Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and be the second Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress.

Carson, 33, said that he does not believe his religious identity hurts him politically, even while American Muslims struggle to gain acceptance.

Polling this past summer by the Pew Research Center and Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 29 percent of Americans held unfavorable views of Muslim-Americans, a higher percentage than shortly after Sept. 11, 2001.

"I think it's more of an advantage," Carson said. "It's a platform to address ignorance. It's a platform to really show that this campaign is about inclusion of all races and religions."

However, Carson said that his faith does not drive his stands on issues, other than instilling the values that have shaped his life and led him to public service. He said his decision-making is based on his constituents' needs.

"For me, the religion informs me - you need to respect people" regardless of their race, religion or gender, said Carson, who is black. "That is the foundation I go by."

Carson's grandmother raised him in a Baptist church and enrolled him at an inner-city Catholic school, where he entertained the idea of becoming a priest.

As he grew older, he became interested in Islam, reading the poetry of the Sufi mystic Rumi and "The Autobiography of Malcolm X."

He converted to Islam more than a decade ago and began attending prayers at Nur-Allah Islamic Center, a predominantly African-American Sunni mosque…

After Julia Carson died Dec. 15, Louis Farrakhan delivered a eulogy at her funeral, leading some…to question Andre Carson's ties to the controversial Nation of Islam leader.

Carson said the ties barely exist: His mosque is not affiliated with the Nation of Islam.

He’s a Baptist, Catholic-school, convert to Islam; and in Christian faith tradition, it would be unthinkable for other Baptists or Catholics to intimidate Carson for his individual faith tradition.

Would Carson be as free to make such a decision away from Islamic faith?

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