Gov. Bobby Jindal Is One of the Top Republican Islamophobes -- and Also a Religious Extremist

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/gov-bobby-jindal-one-top-republican-islamophobes-and-also-religious-extremist

Today Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is in London, to give a speech about how to address Islamic extremism at the conservative Henry Jackson Society. While this topic has little to do with his current job, hysteria about Muslims is a rising topic among the crop of Republican presidential contenders, and the speech is a way for Jindal to court the Islamophobia among GOP primary voters.

But Jindal is perhaps the most ironic figure to address religious extremism, given his own background. He has been a fervent convert to Catholicism, and has engaged in borderline abusive practices himself; as governor, he expanded the role of religion in public schools, blurring the divide between church and state. If anything, Jindal should take a look at his own messianic religiosity before criticizing others'.

A Fervent Young Convert, Leaving His Heritage Behind

Jindal's family emigrated to the United States in 1970, when his mother came to complete a graduate degree in nuclear physics at Louisiana State University. Born Piyush Jindal, he changed his name to Bobby when, as a child, he grew to like one of the characters of The Brady Bunch. Somewhere between high school and college, he left his parents' Hinduism behind and was baptized as a college student, becoming a Catholic.

Both these moves – changing his name and his religion – have become rhetorical rallying points for Jindal. In the remarks given today, he boasts that his family came to the States to become “not Indian Americans, simply Americans.” This language is a signal to primary voters – ignore my skin color and my strange last name: I'm one of you.