Effort fails to block Muslim

Council aide now under fire after questioning the man’s faith

A local Republican precinct chair, who is also a Houston City Council staff member, is under fire this week for trying to block the appointment of a fellow precinct chair because he is Muslim.

Trebor Gordon, who makes $55,000 a year as community outreach director to first-term Councilman Mike Knox, said Syed Ali should not be named to fill a vacant precinct chair post in the Alief area because “Islam and Christianity do not mix.”

Gordon, who serves as a part-time pastor at a Near North Side church and as chaplain for the Harris County Republican Party, contended Ali did not bow his head Monday night during his prayer at the party’s quarterly meeting.

“If you believe that a person can practice Islam and agree to the foundational principles of the Republican Party, it’s not right, it’s not true, it can’t happen,” Gordon said.

A video of the discussion shows a fair number of voice votes in favor of Gordon’s motion, but a louder chorus of members opposed.

Gordon did not respond to a request for comment.

GOP chair Paul Simpson, who ruled Gordon’s motion defeated, noted Ali — one of 37 candidates up for confirmation on Monday — had received a unanimous recommendation from the party’s vacancy committee.

Simpson also lauded Ali for being “a voice for Republicanism in the Pakistani community for years,” and noted what he said was Ali’s regular Republican voting history.

“I agree with the overwhelming majority of our volunteer grass-roots activists that we don’t have religious tests for those who want to fight for our country, help elect Republicans and advance conservative principles,” Simpson said.

Ali, who works in the insurance business, said Gordon’s comments did not offend him.

“I don’t have anything against him. That’s his point of view,” Ali said. “Freedom of speech, Constitution of the United States, his belief, his thought, his experience, his individual mind – that was his mind, and that was his speech. That’s fine with me.”

No test needed

Mustafaa Carroll, of the Council on American–Islamic Relations’ Houston branch, was less sanguine.

“There is no religious test necessary to be a public official in the United States of America,” Carroll said. “This country is founded on religious pluralism and if he (Gordon) knew about the document the Founding Fathers wrote, then he would know that.”

Knox said he was upset when he learned of Gordon’s comments, which he called “unfortunate” and “incendiary,” but said he does not plan to fire him.

“As a conservative person, I believe in the First Amendment and I think people can say whatever they want on their own time, have their own beliefs and so forth. We shouldn’t be throwing people away when they make mistakes in judgment the first time,” Knox said. “I’ve had a discussion with him about it. He understands that’s not the policy of this office and we’re not going to tolerate that kind of behavior up here.”

Gordon’s social media pages are dominated by political commentary, including repeated references to Islam.

He recently has shared links from sites such as “Bare Naked Islam,” whose tagline is “It isn’t Islamophobia when they really ARE trying to kill you,” and “Islam Exposed.”

Alongside one link about a man being charged with a hate crime for tearing off a Muslim woman’s headscarf on an airplane, Gordon wrote, “Here, we find Islam defining morality,” along with the hashtag “#IslamicSupremacist.”

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Knox said he doesn’t monitor Gordon’s social media posts. Late Thursday, following a reporter’s inquiry, Gordon’s Facebook page no longer appeared in search results and links to it from his Twitter account stopped working.

“As long as he’s been working here, I’ve not noticed any of that attitude here in the office during our business hours,” Knox said. “The people of Houston need to know I don’t think that way. All the citizens of Houston can expect fair representation from me.”

Muslims compose an estimated 1.2 percent of Houston’s population, meaning Knox can count about 27,000 Muslims among his constituents, as he holds an at-large seat and serves citywide rather than in a specific district. An estimated 422,000 Muslims lived in Texas as of 2010, the highest tally of any state.

“It appears that Muslims are the last people in America that you can talk about and use hateful language and hateful speech, and there are no political consequences,” Carroll said. “He wouldn’t have the nerve to say that about anybody else publicly.”

Ali, who has been involved in the Republican Party for three decades, said he had not previously faced discrimination from members.

“Matter of fact, this has become a blessing to me, since so many people talked to me, (shook) my hand,” Ali said. “If one person has this kind of experience or this kind of remark, there’s 300 people (who) have a positive remark.”

One of those in attendance at Monday’s meeting was Katy-area precinct chair Felicia Winfree Cravens, who recorded a video of Gordon’s motion and the ensuing discussion.

“I don’t know that I’ve heard anybody make that kind of an objection on the floor, ever,” Cravens said, adding she feels the party has become more inclusive in recent years. “It’s been a little bit of cold water in the face to realize that some of that sentiment is still here.”

Councilwoman Ellen Cohen, who last year rallied votes for Houston’s since-repealed nondiscrimination ordinance, said she found Gordon’s comments “abhorrent.”

“That attitude is so disruptive and doesn’t speak for the kind of country we are and should be,” she said.

Gordon was the plaintiff last year in a lawsuit that resulted in the removal of some of the city’s campaign finance restrictions. Gordon, who in 2013 finished a distant fourth in a fourman race for City Council, argued the rules kept him from effectively challenging an incumbent.