Deborah Hedlund, a candidate for the Minnesota Supreme Court, received an anti-Muslim email from a campaign vendor, Matt Look, that said, “Can Muslims Be Good Americans?” the Pioneer Press reports. The email continued, “Perhaps we should be suspicious of all Muslims in this country. They obviously cannot be both ‘good’ Muslims and good Americans. … And Barack Hussein Obama, a Muslim, wants to be our President? You have GOT to be kidding! Wake up America!”
In response, Hedlund inadvertently replied to all recipients saying, “Matt, We speak the same language. And I still need to let voters know they have a choice to ‘Seek Justice, Vote For Experience’ for the Minnesota Supreme Court.”
Hedlund is challenging Justice Lorie Gildea for a seat on the Minnesota Supreme Court. She has a rich history in evangelical Christian circles having taught at St. Paul’s Northwestern College, an evangelical Baptist college, and she attends the evangelical Wayzata Free Church. Hedlund has received the support of EdWatch (PDF), a religious right group so extreme that they accused Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty of being “pro-homosexual.”
Hedlund says she doesn’t know whether Obama is a Muslim or not. “I have no idea what he is. My level of information about the presidential candidates would not fill a thimble,” she told the Pioneer Press. Obama is a Christian.
Hedlund said she didn’t read the email before replying to it and simply meant that she agreed with a deal she and Look has reached on lawn signs. “I disavow it,” she said. “I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
Her opponent, Gildea, was appointed by Gov. Pawlenty in 2006.
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