> Certain segments of Christianity have views that to me make them unelectable. And that is super important to know/understand. But I don't get to understand/we

> Certain segments of Christianity have views that to me make them unelectable. And that is super important to know/understand. But I don't get to understand/we don't get to challenge a Muslim person's belief like that because it is somehow racist to ask. I don't see anyone saying it's unfair to talk about the beliefs a specific Muslim candidate has expressed but Maguire wasn't talking about anything Mamdani has said. He made a sweeping claim about an entire culture, saying they considered it a virtue to lie when that is in fact broadly condemned. He almost certainly based that belief on propaganda about the concept of taqiyya which has been swirling around right-wing circles for the last couple of decades. That concept refers to a narrow exception allowing Muslims to conceal or disavow their religious beliefs when they fear for their safety. The term is derived from a root meaning of caution or fear, and dates back to when Islam was a minority religion whose followers had real examples of recantations forced under torture. Christians active in right-wing politics have claimed that it is both broadly practiced and interpreted to allow lying to spread Islam itself despite limited evidence and strident disagreement by actual scholars – there's a good summary here with a lot of links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya#Contemporary_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya#Contemporary_debate This is about as fair as finding a Seven Mountains Dominionist preacher who says that Christians need to control all aspects of society, claiming that they speak for all Christians, and then claiming that belief is secretly shared by a Christian political candidate who has never voiced supported for that sect and must override all of their stated views or past actions. I'm an atheist now so I don't have a god in this fight but I've known enough people of each of the Abrahamic religions that I wouldn't make a general criticism of any individual except based on things they personally said or did.