One year ago, I wrote about how Texas Gov. Greg Abbott amplified a racist, Islamophobic tweet to further a conspiracy theory about a North Texas Muslim community. The conspiracy was that the planned community, EPIC City, was going to enact Sharia Law and circumvent state and federal laws.
The nonprofit think tank Center for the Study of Organized Hate, recently released a report that tracks how that initial conspiracy-laden tweet set off a cascade of anti-Muslim hate speech. Specifically, they found that 46 Republican elected officials have over the last nine months collectively published more than 1,100 Islamophobic posts on official media accounts. The report notes:
The “Sharia” conspiracy appeared in 48% of posts, serving as the campaign’s master frame. The language of “invasion,” “conquest,” and “Islamification” mirrors the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, recasting Muslims as a population threat engaged in deliberate civilizational conquest.
Recently, the Republican hate-machine led by Gov. Abbott took another swipe at Muslims in Texas.
On Wednesday, May 6, Abbott once again reposted a tweet — this one from a host for the right-wing extremist Blaze Media. It’s worth noting that rather than issue a press release, Abbott instead announced his likely illegal threats against a Texas city by reposting a tweet with screenshots of the letter his office sent to the city of Grand Prairie.
At issue is the private rental of a city water park, Epic Waters, by a group of Muslims who were planning to host their annual Eid al-Adha celebration in a waterpark environment where everyone was dressed modestly.
Anyone who has ever hosted a children’s birthday party at a public pool in Texas knows these city-owned facilities can be rented out in part or in whole for events that are closed to the public. In fact, my kid’s birthday party last year was at one of these city pools — although at age 9 we only rented one pavilion rather than the whole facility.
In the case of the Muslim community’s rental of Epic Waters, their flier advertising the event said it was for Muslims only. When that flier began to stir controversy, the organizers changed it to welcome the general public with the requirement that anyone attending dress modestly — specifically, women attending were to wear a “burkini” covering them from head to toe. This requirement is in keeping with Muslim Sharia Law which, like the Jewish Halacha Law, is translated as “way” or “path” and intended to guide the religiously faithful in their day-to-day religious living.
Given that “Epic Eid” was a private rental, the Muslim organizers should have been free to invite or exclude anyone they wanted. But the governor didn’t see it that way.
That’s why the governor had the executive director of the Texas Public Safety Office, Andrew Friedrichs, send a threat to the city of Grand Prairie insisting they cancel the private rental of the waterpark or lose the $530,000 in public safety grants the state awarded the city for 2026.
This isn’t the first time Gov. Abbott has threatened cities in Texas, but the threat against Grand Prairie over a religious event is the most egregious so far because it coerces the city to religiously discriminate against some of its citizens.
“For decades, evangelicals and some right-wing Catholics like Abbott have been obsessed with Muslims and Sharia Law.”
It’s shocking and troubling that the city of Grand Prairie complied with the governor’s demands. They now have opened themselves to a First Amendment lawsuit for religious discrimination by treating this private rental differently than other private rentals. In fact, as of this writing, the city-owned waterpark is still available for private group rental — although, presumably, not by Muslims.
Abbott’s demand that Grand Prairie discriminate against its Muslim citizens is made even more deplorable by his accusations leveled against the Muslim organizers. According to his warped logic, because this private rental in celebration of the Muslim holiday of Eid was catering to Muslims, the organizers are actually the ones committing religious discrimination.
A city-owned water park in Grand Prairie openly advertised a “MUSLIMS ONLY” event — closed to the general public. That’s religious discrimination. That’s unconstitutional. I signed HB 4211 into law — banning Muslim only no-go zones in Texas.
HB-4211 was passed in response to the planned Muslim community called EPIC City and governs business entity-owned residential arrangements. While one can argue the bill is discriminatory, it doesn’t govern private rentals of public facilities.
The governor’s threats against Grand Prairie to coerce them to commit religious discrimination by treating a private rental of their facility differently for Muslims than for any other group are themselves religiously discriminatory and represent an escalation in the anti-Muslim sentiment among right-wing extremists like Abbott.
For decades, evangelicals and some right-wing Catholics like Abbott have been obsessed with Muslims and Sharia Law.
In 2011, Center for American Progress released a downloadable briefing about the wrong-headed conspiracies being spread about Sharia Law in the U.S. The Center for the Study of Organized Hate’s recent report shows how pervasive this obsession has become and how it is amplified by elected officials who are sworn to uphold the constitution for all Americans.
The report and Abbott’s latest salvo in the assault on Muslim-Americans should be a wake-up call for all people of faith in this country because this escalation isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s occurring at the same time state legislatures — led by the example set by the state of Texas — are passing bills seeking to enshrine a particularly narrow version of Christianity as the one preferred by the government and pushed in public schools.
Our Founders understood the threats to religious liberty imposed by tyrannical government officials, which is why the First Amendment exists. I for one hope to see Abbott’s latest illegal actions challenged on First Amendment grounds to protect the religious freedom of all Texans.
Mara Richards Bim
Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as program director at Faith Commons. She is a spiritual director and a recent master of divinity degree graduate from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.
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Texas Gov. Abbott is spreading a conspiracy theory that attacks Muslims | Analysis by Mara Richards Bim