By Adeel Hassan @ NYTimes.com, Jan. 10 

[....] The vote was not over qualifications or any misdeed by the party leader, Shahid Shafi, a surgeon and longtime Republican who was appointed vice chairman of the Tarrant County Republican Party six months ago. It was over whether Dr. Shafi’s Muslim faith disqualified him from the job.  [....]

“Religious liberty won tonight,” Darl Easton, the Republican Party’s county chairman, said after Dr. Shafi was supported, 139 to 49, in Thursday’s vote. “And while that makes a great day for the Republican Party of Tarrant County, that victory also serves notice that we have much work to do unifying our party.”

[....] this latest controversy brought out the biggest Republican luminaries in the state, and they offered resolute support for Dr. Shafi, 54, who became a citizen in 2009 and who has served as a City Council member in Southlake, Tex., since 2014 [....]