My social media blew up today. OMG – Congressional Democrats have changed House rules, allowing religious headwear in the House, because Ilhan Omar demanded permission to be allowed to wear a hijab because this Muslim interloper demanded special treatment! HOW HORRIBLE!

Can everyone please calm the hell down?

This is not the beginning of a Muslim invasion of Congress, and it doesn’t mean that sharia law will soon force you to shun bacon.

In fact, I see this as a media information operations campaign to paint psycho-Israel-Hater-Creepy-Brother-Marrying Omar as some kind of religious freedom hero – a David who took on the Congressional Goliath and won her right to wrap herself up like a mummy on the floor of Congress.

In fact, no prohibition on wearing a hijab or any other religious headgear has ever existed.

The rule change to overhaul the ban on head coverings, which has reportedly been in place since 1837, now reads: “During the session of the House, a Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner may not wear nonreligious headdress or a hat or remain by the Clerk’s desk during the call of the roll or the counting of ballots.”

The history of the ban had nothing to do with religious headgear. The measure was adopted because of decorum.

Here comes the history.

In the institution’s early years, Representatives and guests in the galleries routinely donned their hats while the chamber was in session—a custom that hearkened to British Parliament. In 1822,Charles F. Mercer of Virginia proposed banning the practice. “Nor shall any Member remain in the Hall covered during the session of the House,” Mercer’s amendment read. Mercer’s proposal failed.

John M. Patton of Virginia defended “the really harmless but apparently indecorous practice of wearing our hats” as a manifestation of the House’s resolute rejection of presidential meddlesomeness.

First of all, the hijab and yarmulke, for that matter, are not hats, but rather religious attire protected by the First Amendment.

Second, it has never been interpreted as a ban on religious headwear. When Frederica Wilson raised an unholy fit in 2010 about being allowed to don her tacky, sequined hats in the chamber, she demanded that the ban on hats be repealed. It wasn’t. But PolitiFact wondered back then if the hat ban included religious headwear and approached then-House Speaker John Boehner’s office about it.

An aside: we wondered if the current hat ban rule would prohibit religious Jews from wearing yarmulke or Muslim women from wearing the hijab or headscarf. Steel, Boehner’s spokesman, said in an e-mail: “The rule regarding hats has never been interpreted to apply to religious headcoverings.”

So what is this really about? It’s about lionizing Omar for standing up to and challenging “evil white men” as a Muslim and a woman. The media is pretending that this was a hijab ban and claiming it “could be interpreted” as such (note the language), although it never has been.

And Omar is lapping up the attention.

Spare me.

Omar is not a hero, and she’s taken on a “problem” that never existed in the first place.

We – as conservatives – should not fall into her, the media, and the Democrats’ trap and freak out about her religious expression. Instead we should recognize this “rule change” for what it is – virtue signaling by addressing a “problem” that has never existed to begin with, and an attempt to paint conservatives as bigots by highlighting outrage about said non-issue.

Remember – Democrats and the media pointed to alleged conservative “outrage” about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing on a roof when she was in college.

…High School video of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — Congratulations New York! pic.twitter.com/VSKdUImhZj

— Dan Jordan (@realdanjordan) January 2, 2019

Except the outrage never happened. One “QAnon” account posted the video, and the media ran with the “outrage” story, as if conservatives were desperate to criticize Occasional-Cortex on anything they could get their hands on.

The one account that shared this has now been deleted, but apparently that one account = all conservatives and Republicans, and the media lapped up the message, painting poor Ocasio as a victim of conservative efforts to somehow “discredit” her for doing a cute dance on a rooftop in college.

For the record, I know of no conservative or Republican that thinks this video is anything but adorable. Honestly, I think she should stick to dancing. She’s better at it than economics and fiscal policy.

So let’s not fall into another leftist trap meant to paint conservatives as bigots.

Let’s save our outrage for what this ultra-leftist proglodyte aims to do, rather than her wrapping herself in a schmata in the House chamber.