{"id":712,"date":"2003-10-06T10:15:23","date_gmt":"2003-10-06T15:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/712.html"},"modified":"2003-10-06T10:15:23","modified_gmt":"2003-10-06T15:15:23","slug":"north-carolina-republican-blames-muslims-for-his-failed-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/north-carolina-republican-blames-muslims-for-his-failed-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"North Carolina Republican blames Muslims for his failed marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When we last heard from Rep. Cass Ballenger (R-N.C.), he was admitting to having <a href=\"http:\/\/www.charlotte.com\/mld\/charlotte\/4784368.htm\">&#8220;segregationist feelings&#8221; against African Americans<\/a> after working alongside an African-American congresswoman whom he disliked.<\/p>\n<p>Less than a year later, Ballenger is making headlines again. This time he&#8217;s blaming his home&#8217;s proximity to a Muslim non-profit organization for the breakup of his marriage.<\/p>\n<p>I wish I were clever enough to make some of this stuff up.<\/p>\n<p>Ballenger and his wife have been living across the street from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which promotes Muslim civil rights in America. The Republican lawmaker is now asserting that his family&#8217;s proximity to the group caused the Ballengers so much stress that it is responsible, in part, for his pending divorce.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A44108-2003Oct4.html\">Ballenger said<\/a> that he and his wife would look out the window at CAIR&#8217;s offices and become anxious about what he described as women &#8220;wearing hoods&#8221; while entering and exiting the building. (Ballenger, apparently, is ignorant about Islamic headscarves.)<\/p>\n<p>Ballenger noted that his home is less than three blocks from the Capitol and he was concerned that the Muslims at CAIR &#8220;could blow the place up.&#8221;<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nWhile insisting that he did not hate Muslims (what could possibly give us that idea), Ballenger said he didn&#8217;t want to live across the street from CAIR because he believed &#8212; without any proof &#8212; that the group may have terrorist ties.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The only difference I have is that building across the street,&#8221; Ballenger said. He added, &#8220;In my opinion, it should never have been leased&#8221; to the non-profit organization.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll admit I&#8217;m not familiar with the legal grounds for divorce in North Carolina, but I had no idea being a moron was one of the options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we last heard from Rep. Cass Ballenger (R-N.C.), he was admitting to having &#8220;segregationist feelings&#8221; against African Americans after working alongside an African-American congresswoman whom he disliked. Less than a year later, Ballenger is making headlines again. This time he&#8217;s blaming his home&#8217;s proximity to a Muslim non-profit organization for the breakup of his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}