Louisville, Kentucky rewrote its small-business lending rules through a program called METCO to offer what it calls a "Sharia-compliant modification option." Minneapolis has distributed $1.44 million in similar loans since 2007. Philadelphia's housing plan includes developing "a Sharia-compliant Financing Product." Seattle's mayor created a specific action item for "Housing Tools for Sharia-Compliant Lending." Maine changed its banking law — actual state statute — to allow state-chartered credit unions to offer mortgage products designed around the financial requirements of Islamic religious law. It got there by following the cities.
Nobody rewrote anything for the Baptists.
There's a pattern that's been quietly building across Democrat-run cities for years: municipal governments restructuring public lending programs to comply with Islamic Sharia law, which prohibits charging interest — or riba — on loans. The accommodations range from interest-free small business loans to specially structured mortgages, all designed to meet the religious requirements of Muslim borrowers.
The Minneapolis program is the most established. Its "Alternative Financing" initiative launched in 2007 and has moved $1.44 million in Sharia-compliant loans through the city's system. The companion "Two Percent Loan" program charges what it carefully labels a "rate of return" instead of interest — capped at 2% — for Muslim applicants. Maximum loan size: $75,000.
Maine went a step further and changed state law to allow state-chartered credit unions to offer Sharia-compliant mortgages. Not a city program. Not a pilot. An actual change to state banking law to accommodate one religion's financial requirements.
Christian doctrine banned usury for a thousand years before the Reformation. The Catholic Church still teaches that predatory lending violates human dignity. Orthodox Jewish law has detailed principles around financial ethics and lending. No city has restructured its lending programs around any of it. If you're a Baptist business owner in Louisville who'd prefer terms that reflect your faith's financial principles, you're welcome to browse the standard rate sheet like everyone else.
Louisville didn't build a Baptist-compliant modification option. Minneapolis doesn't offer a Catholic alternative financing track. Philadelphia isn't developing a Jewish-compliant housing product. The accommodation runs in exactly one direction, and the Democrat-run cities doing it publish these programs under their own names in their own official documents.
Governor Greg Abbott drew this line explicitly at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, forcing the cancellation of plans for Islamic Wudu foot-washing stations in Terminal D. "Government-owned airports cannot favor one religion over all others," Abbott posted. That is what the Establishment Clause requires. Blue cities have been running programs that contradict it for nearly two decades.
What Minneapolis, Louisville, Philadelphia, Seattle, and the state of Maine have built are public financial products designed by name, by function, and by official government marketing around the doctrinal requirements of a single faith. A government entity restructuring a public financial product around the doctrinal requirements of one specific religion isn't "inclusion." It's preference. And everyone involved knows it, which is why the programs use careful language like "rate of return" instead of "interest" and "alternative financing" instead of what it actually is — a faith-based carve-out baked into municipal lending policy.
The counter-argument writes itself: these programs serve an underbanked population and promote homeownership and small business development. Which would be a compelling case if the same cities had ever shown the slightest interest in restructuring loan products around Catholic social teaching, Orthodox Jewish lending principles, or any other religious framework. They haven't. The accommodation runs in exactly one direction.
Five cities. Two states. One religion.
Nobody rewrote anything for the Baptists.
