Amid Crime, Homelessness, and Budget Issues, San Diego Confronts the REAL Problem

At last, San Diego is tackling one of the most serious problems of our age.

San Diego is a jewel of a city. If it weren’t in California, it could present a strong case for being a near-perfect place to live. But it is in the Newsom SSR, and that is its downfall. The last time I was there, a couple of friends and I had dinner downtown a few blocks away from Petco Park, where the San Diego Padres play baseball, and then dodged homeless drug addicts all the way over to the stadium.

Although San Diego has a relatively low crime rate for a large city, there’s a shortage of police officers that has led police departments to give short shrift to crimes that are considered as serious as others, so that San Diegans who are victims of petty crimes won’t get justice, but they can at least console themselves that they aren’t getting murdered. The city can’t or won’t do much about this because it is busy dealing with a huge budget shortfall. That’s what happens, of course, when far-left city officials lavish money on woke priorities, such as free stuff for illegal migrants, rather than dealing with real problems.

But at last, the San Diego City Council is facing head-on one of the really big problems confronting its fair city. NBC San Diego reported Tuesday that the council “voted unanimously to officially define the term ‘Islamophobia.’” Once the term is clearly defined, you see, offenders can be duly prosecuted. This was necessary, the city council claims, because “anti-Muslim hate is growing and this is a way to fight it.”

And it’s true, there may indeed be a problem: Back on May 18, two teenagers whom NBC San Diego says were “motivated by white nationalism” murdered three men at the Islamic Center of San Diego, and then killed themselves. This was an unspeakable atrocity, and there is no minimizing that fact for the families and friends of the victims. Whether it means, however, that “Islamophobia” is as big, or bigger, a problem than jihad violence and the advance of Sharia in the U.S. remains an open question.

The San Diego City Council, however, doesn’t believe there’s anything open about it at all. Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera and Council President Joe LaCava proposed that the council adopt a definition of “Islamophobia,” and now the deed is done. The official definition of “Islamophobia” in San Diego is now this: “Islamophobia is a form of racism, prejudice, discrimination, hostility, or hatred directed toward Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim, or their property, that targets expressions of Muslim identity or perceived Muslim identity and may manifest through speech, conduct, institutional practices, exclusion, intimidation, harassment, or violence.”

After the council adopted this definition, it explained that it intended it to serve as “an educational tool to help the city identify, condemn, and combat anti-Muslim hate and would reaffirm the city’s commitment to religious freedom and civil rights.”

That’s terrific, but the council’s “Islamophobia” definition is strewn with landmines. The problem here is the same as with all “Islamophobia” initiatives. The intention is to stop people from attacking innocent Muslims. The San Diego City Council’s definition of the term, however, will result in restricting honest analysis of the motivating ideology behind jihad terrorism. That’s because leftist propaganda organizations such as the now-discredited Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Muslim pressure groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have for years now routinely characterized such analysis as “racism, prejudice, discrimination, hostility,” and “hatred.”

These groups have been responsible for making huge numbers of Americans think it’s “bigotry” and, indeed, “Islamophobia” to oppose jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women. They have defamed those who have pointed out Islam’s violent, misogynistic, and antisemitic teachings by likening them to Ku Klux Klansmen and segregationists. They have claimed that to look at how Islamic teachings lead to Islamic terrorism constitutes the intimidation and harassment of Muslims that San Diego defines as “Islamophobia.”

That means that this measure should run afoul of First Amendment concerns. There is no way that the San Diego City Council will discover a way to muzzle criticism of Islam and opposition to jihad and Sharia, which is what this initiative is all about, and also to protect the freedom of speech. It simply cannot be done.

San Diego should drop this definition of “Islamophobia” and deal with its real problems.

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