Florida Republican in Islam hate row

BROOKSVILLE, Fla., Nov. 2 (UPI) -- A prominent local Republican in Florida said Tuesday he believed Islam was a "hateful, frightening religion."

Tom Hogan, Sr., the recently appointed commissioner of Hernando County, told the St. Petersburg Times Tuesday that he agreed with a letter his wife Mary Ann had written to the paper describing Islam as a "hateful, frightening religion."

"Overall, worldwide, it certainly is," Hogan said. "Don't you read your own paper?

"There's a saying out there, and there's some truth to it, that not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. It's their thing," he told the newspaper.

Mrs. Hogan wrote her letter to the St. Petersburg Times last week in which she criticized county authorities for supporting the celebration of Eid-al-Fitr, the festival that marked the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Oct. 23, at a local mosque.

The St. Petersburg Times described Tom and Mary Ann Hogan as being "widely considered the first couple of Hernando County's Republican Party, and both have helped lead the party since the 1960s."

The paper said that local Muslim religious leaders in Hernando County "reacted with shock and dismay" to the Hogans' comments.

"We're deeply concerned about the hateful and racist nature of these comments," Ahmed Bedier, executive director of the Tampa chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told the newspaper. He said he would urge Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who appointed Hogan to the county commissioner's post less than three months ago, to fire him from it.

But Mary Ann Hogan told the St. Petersburg Times she was standing by her comments. "They can call it whatever they want to," she said. "I'm calling them barbarians. "