Knox County Commissioner Weighs In On Amplified Islamic Prayer In Public Areas, Proposes Resolution

Image Credit: Knox County Commission & Canva

Tennessee Conservative News [By David Seal] –

Knox County Commissioner Andy Fox (R-Knoxville, District 9) is sounding the alarm on the “designs of Islamists” and he is not bashful in bringing a resolution to curb the amplified “call to prayer” on city streets.

Fox’s county resolution cites in the preamble commentary from this nation’s founders, including George Washington and John Jay, as well as U.S. Supreme Court opinions to justify a county resolution that would create an offense punishable by a $1000 fine per violation. 

It would, if approved, impose the following language: “No Islamic call to prayer shall be undertaken in public by any means of amplification, whether electronic or otherwise.”

It would be titled in the Resolution “Section 1. A new ordinance shall be created under The Knox County Code, Chapter 50, Article I, Sec. 50-4, entitled “Prohibition Of Amplified Islamic Call to Prayer.”

A full copy of the proposed resolution is provided here.

The Tennessee Conservative News conducted an exclusive interview with Commissioner Fox. The following text is Fox’s own words about the need and justification for the resolution prohibiting “Amplified Islamic Call to Prayer.”

“The amplified Islamic call to prayer is an integral part of the Islamic conquest by immigration known as “hijrah.”  This practice is far different than the long-standing American tradition of church bells.  Church bells carry no verbal explicit message, whereas the call to prayer, the Adnan is a proclamation about Islam claiming superiority over other religions, which is a message that people should not be subjected to in our current neutral secular public square era of establishment and free exercise.

Under our current forum analysis for free speech rights, certainly if an Islamist wants to stand on the street corner or in other public forums and yell with their voice Islam’s false claims at reasonable times and places, they have a right to do that.  Muslims do not have a right to amplify their religious expressions over multiple entire neighborhoods.  Policy makers do not have to be blind to the designs of Islamists.  They no longer are operating under cover; they are clear about their intentions to make this nation Islamic.  They have already succeeded in Dearborn.

Ken Paulson, Dir. of the Free Speech Center at MTSU, opined that this proposed ordinance was facially unconstitutional, claiming the ordinance has a “hateful tone.”  Anytime a professor includes the words “hateful tone” as part of the justification for why something is or is not constitutional, that’s a pretty good sign you should disregard what is being said.  I am embarrassed for Mr. Paulson, for his inability to see a distinction between church bells and the Islamic call to prayer under our current First Amendment jurisprudence.

But, I want to make it clear that it is time to roll back the terrible insult that the progressive movement has made on our First Amendment jurisprudence over the past 125 years.  “Separation of church and state” meant something entirely different in the 18th and 19th century compared to what it means at this time or beginning in the mid- 20th.  I direct anyone interested in this subject to read law professor Phillip Hamburger’s book, Separation of Church and State.  Very few living in the time the First Amendment was ratified would have ever voted for ratification if they could predict the eventual transmogrification of Jefferson’s “misleading metaphor” ((Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 92, 105 S. Ct. 2479, 2508, 86 L. Ed. 2d 29 (1985)(quote is from former Chief Justice Rehnquist).

Former Justice Joseph Story addressed this very issue in his 1833 treatise, Commentaries on the Constitution, where he states in Sec. 1868 that people of the founding era would have been indignant at the premise that the First Amendment establishment clause meant government should place all religions on the same plane and exhibit indifference to religion in general – which is the current state of our neutral secular public square.  Story went on to state in Sec. 1871, “[t]he real object of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment.  (Emphasis added). 

Was Everson v. Board of Education (1947) wrong? Yes, but Reynolds v. US (1879), which brought “separation of church and state” into US jurisprudence, was wrong before it, to the extent that the reasoning was founded on Jefferson’s metaphor, although the outcome may be correct. Our First Amendment religion clause jurisprudence is built on a house of cards.

Christians need to reclaim the First Amendment for its original intent, which recognized federal-only limitations on any one particular sect of Christianity as having favored status over other sects the same way that Christians reclaimed the abortion issue; the way that gun-right’s advocates have defeated gun control.  Long term this means adopting legislation at varying levels of government the way the State of Mississippi challenged Roe v. Wade’s spurious ruling. Tennessee, and Knox County, will be able to impose limitations on Islamists that make it inhospitable for them to live here.  But for now, there is plenty that governments can do to hold back the Islamic quest for dominance within the current paradigm of Constitutional acceptability.”  – said Commissioner Andy Fox

About the Author: David Seal is a retired Jefferson County educator, recognized artist, local businessman, 917 Society Volunteer, and past Chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party. He has also served Jefferson County as a County Commissioner and is a citizen lobbyist for the people on issues such as eminent domain, property rights, education, and broadband accessibility on the state level. David is also a 2024 winner of The Tennessee Conservative Flame Award & has received an accolade from the Institute For Justice for successfully lobbing the TN legislature to protect property rights. David can be reached at david@tennesseeconservativenews.com.