Lowe’s Yanks Ads From Muslim Reality Series

In the wake of pressure from the Florida Family Association (FFA), Lowe’s Hardware Store has decided to stop advertising on a controversial Muslim reality TV series.

Lowe’s has yanked its ads from All-American Muslim, a reality show on TLC.

As TLC describes it, All-American Muslim takes a look at life in Dearborn, Mich.—home to the largest mosque in the United States—through the lens of five Muslim American families. TLC explains that each episode offers an intimate look at the customs and celebrations, misconceptions, and conflicts these families face outside and within their own community.

“Clearly this program is attempting to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad and to influence them to believe that being concerned about the jihad threat would somehow victimize these nice people in this show,” the FFA said on its website.

As the FFA sees it, one of the most troubling scenes airs at the introduction of the program when a Muslim police officer states, “I really am American. No ifs ands or buts about it.”

“This scene would appear to be damage control for the Dearborn police who have arrested numerous Christians including several former Muslims for peacefully preaching Christianity,” the FFA says.

Dearborn police arrested Nabeel Qureshi and Paul Rezkalla in 2010 and Sudanese Christian pastor George Saieg in 2009 for preaching Christianity at the Annual Arab International Festival.

“The first two episodes start off with Muslim youth complaining about non-Muslim Americans’ perception of them as extremists after 9/11. The show then reports on these youths’ daily, weekly and monthly prayer rituals,” the FFA writes. “Many Imams who are at the head of these prayer rituals believe strongly in Islam and Shariah law. This TLC show clearly failed to connect the dots on this point but then again that appears to be their intent.

The FFA sent out email alerts on Nov. 15, 22 and 29 to inform its supporters about All-American Muslim. The alerts encouraged supporters to send emails to the companies that advertised during the first three weeks that the program aired, including Lowe’s.

“Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views,” Lowe’s said statement said. “As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.”