John Bogna
A “news” story Miller shared on Sunday via Facebook claimed Donald Trump fired a federal judge for trying to implement Sharia law in the United States.
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“Good on President Trump,” Miller’s caption for the post read.
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Only, turns out, the story he shared isn’t true.
The story reportedly came from blogger.com, claiming the fictional judge to be fired from the “22nd court of criminal appeals,” which doesn’t exist.
As the San Antonio Current wrote in an article, Sharia law and its connection to Islamic extremism is a reoccurring target of the politically conservative; brought into the public consciousness with the rise of ISIS, many people mistakenly equate Sharia law with the extremist group’s practices.
In reality, the article further reads, Sharia is a set of guiding principles, which can be interpreted and implemented differently.
ISIS is currently implementing what many describe as a harsher version of Sharia, but it isn’t the only interpretation.
Once Miller found out the article to be fake, he changed his caption:
“Well it looks like I may have been duped. This may be fake news, but I still think Sharia law has no place in the United States of America.”
The story remains posted, and, according to the San Antonio Current, received more than 7,000 shares by Tuesday.
The Texas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations addressed the post and called on Miller to take it down, saying
“As an elected official and a community leader, the Texas agriculture commissioner has a responsibility to all Texans to refrain from promoting fake news that is only intended to create division and mistrust in the community.”
Miller’s following is around 600,000 people on Facebook.
One commenter shared their opinion on the situation regarding Miller as an elected official:
“You are holding a government office and you can’t do even the most basic analysis of a story before spread it? You’re supposed to know American law, especially if you’re scared of Sharia law.”
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