A prominent Muslim civil rights group is joining the growing opposition to President Trump’s Army secretary nominee, Mark Green.
Muslim Advocates on Monday issued a statement calling past rhetoric from Green, a Tennessee state senator, against Muslims and the LGBT community “deplorable.”
“You can’t lead a diverse Army while having contempt for diversity,” said Scott Simpson, the group’s public advocacy director.
“Our armed forces are filled with patriotic Americans of all faiths, races, sexual orientations and gender identities, and Mark Green’s naked bigotry disqualifies him for the job of Army Secretary.”
The statement cited Green’s past comments on Muslims and a 2013 Twitter message in which he referred to then-President Obama as “B Hussein Obama.”
During a Tea Party meeting last year, Green reportedly said that Tennessee “will not tolerate” the “teaching [of] the pillars of Islam.”
Another Muslim advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, came out against Green earlier this month.
Green has also come under fierce opposition in the last month from LGBT groups as well as current and former faculty members at service academies, war colleges and other military universities that said they are “alarmed” by his nomination.
Green, whose 20-year Army career included being the first person to interrogate Saddam Hussein after his capture in 2003, has defended himself by saying the “radical left” is “blatantly falsifying” his past statements to “paint [him] as a hater.”