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Frank Gaffney Uses Bizarre, Hypocritical Definition of Free Speech to Defend Boykin

Submitted by Brian Tashman on January 30, 2012 - 5:00pm

Today, anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney is defending Jerry Boykin, who collaborated with Gaffney on the Team B II report concerning the purported threat of Sharia Law, from calls that West Point drop Boykin from speaking at an upcoming prayer event. According to Gaffney, such attempts to disinvite Boykin are actually a threat to his right of freedom of speech:

According to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), there is a grave threat to America that must be suppressed at all costs. The threat is that Lieutenant General William “Jerry” Boykin might be allowed to exercise his constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech.

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To paraphrase the famous German pastor, Martin Niemöller, first they are coming for the “Islamophobes” and for Muslims who oppose shariah’s political agenda. How soon will they decide that you have no right to speak freely, either?

However, no one is questioning Boykin’s right to say whatever he wants to say about Muslims, but groups are questioning whether the military and government officials should be bolstering someone who had described the U.S. military as engaging in a holy war against Islam, compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler and frequently demonized Muslim-Americans.

In fact, the only person interested in taking away anyone’s First Amendment rights is Boykin himself, who said that Muslims should not be allowed to build mosques and “should not be protected under the First Amendment.” As VoteVets made clear, the military has specifically denounced rhetoric that frames the U.S. as anti-Islam as not only wrong but also dangerous.

If Gaffney really believes that groups protesting Boykin’s appearance at West Point are actually stripping Boykin of his right to free speech, then Gaffney is a serial opponent of the First Amendment under his standard.

Last year, Gaffney demanded that the American Conservative Union disinvite Suhail Kahn of Muslims for America from the Conservative Political Action Conference. He also called on CPAC to give the boot to Grover Norquist, who has done advocacy work in the past with Muslim-Americans including Kahn, labeling both of them threats to the conservative movement and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, Liberty Counsel’s Awakening 2011 conference, Gaffney condemned the conference for allowing Norquist to speak there and said that he made it his “personal burden for the past twelve years” to warn conservatives against joining with Norquist, saying, “I must tell you I think this is time to bring it to a stop”:

Therefore, if Gaffney thinks that asking a conference to disinvite a person from speaking at a conference is an attack on the “constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech,” then Gaffney himself has been one of the biggest opponents of the freedom of speech.

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Anti-Muslim, Religious Right Leaders Come Together For "Preserving Freedom Conference"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on September 26, 2011 - 10:14am

This November a coalition of anti-Muslim and Religious Right groups are hosting “The Constitution or Sharia—Preserving Freedom Conference” in Nashville, Tennessee, dubbed “the first national conference on Sharia and the Islamization of America.” The location does not seem to be coincidental: the Tennessee legislature recently weighed a bill that would make it a felony to follow Sharia law and the town of Murfreesboro, just south of Nashville, has witnessed vicious anti-Muslim attacks and arson against a planned mosque. A lawsuit against the mosque declared that Islam is not a religion and therefore Muslims do not deserve First Amendment protections. Presidential candidate Herman Cain went to Murfreesboro to condemn the planned mosque as an “abuse of our freedom of religion,” before declaring that municipalities have a right to ban mosques.

The summit features panels on issues such as “Fighting Islamist Propaganda in the Media,” “Grassroots Organizing Against Sharia and Rabats (including Mega-Mosques),” and “Defending Liberty In Legislatures.” The chief sponsor of the event is the extremist media outlet WorldNetDaily and speakers include a mix of the usual anti-Muslim activists including Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney and Pamela Geller, along with Religious Right leaders who have consistently attacked the rights of Muslims such as Jay Sekulow, Mat Staver, Andrea and Jim Lafferty, E.W. Jackson and William Murray. Michele Bachmann is listed an invited speaker but has not been confirmed:

• Pamela Geller of Stop Islamization of America and Atlas Shrugs
• Robert Spencer of Stop Islamization of America and Jihad Watch
• Jay Sekulow of American Center for Law and Justice
• Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel
• William J. Murray of Religious Freedom Coalition and No 911 Mosque
• Frank Gaffney of Center for Security Policy
• Christopher Holton of Center for Security Policy
• Lou Ann Zelenik of Tennessee Freedom Coaltion
• Andrea Lafferty of Traditional Values Coalition
• James Lafferty of Virginia Anti-Sharia Task Force
• Barrister Paul Diamond, United Kingdom
• Father Keith Roderick
• Bishop Earl W. Jackson
• Fred Grandy - Actor and former congressman
• Wafa Sultan
• Rev. Dr. Mark Durie, Australia

Lou Ann Zelenik is best known for the malicious anti-Muslim themes in her unsuccessful campaign for Congress last year, which focused on stopping the Murfreesboro mosque development. E.W. Jackson is currently relying heavily on anti-Muslim rhetoric in his bid for U.S. Senate in Virginia.

This won’t be the first time Religious Right leaders and anti-Muslim activists have come together at a major event, and anti-Muslim activists have started appearing frequently on Christian conservative radio outlets.

With another gathering set to demonize Muslims and hype fears of “creeping Sharia,” the Religious Right’s ostensible commitment to religious freedom yet again doesn’t translate into freedom for non-Christian faiths.

For example, notice the involvement of “William J. Murray of Religious Freedom Coalition and No 911 Mosque.” As Kyle noted last year in a post about Murray, the Religious Freedom Coalition is “dedicated to the equality of all mankind and the freedom of religious expression” but is also running a campaign determined to stop Muslims from having those same rights by trying to block the construction of the Park 51 Islamic Community Center. The center opened last week without protests, and so far, Lower Manhattan is not under the rule of Sharia law.

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Gaffney: Establish a "House Anti-American Activities Committee"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on September 1, 2011 - 10:54am

Earlier this month, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy accused New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie of “misprision of treason” for appointing lawyer Sohail Mohammed, who is Muslim, to the state’s Superior Court. While speaking with Rick Joyner of MorningStar Ministries and The Oak Initiative yesterday, Gaffney said that more people need to be investigated for misprision of treason - the failure to report treasonous activity to a federal official - a federal offense punishable by up to seven years in prison.

After lauding the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was notorious for using ‘red scare’ tactics in government and the entertainment industry in the 1950’s, Gaffney called for the establishment of a “House Anti-American Activities Committee” that would investigate people involved in treasonous activities or their concealment.

Joyner, who Gaffney called one of his “personal heroes,” is also an anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist who previously argued that educators are replacing the Founding Fathers with Muslims in history textbooks and that Christianity and Islam are on the verge of merging into a religion called Chrislam.

Watch:

Joyner: Yet we have people who are part of an organization whose mission statement is to destroy America and we’re putting them in top level government positions, I mean this is at best, it is shocking incompetence on the part of those who have taken a vow to defend us from these very ones. So we want to be bold about that, you know some people when they see this they’re starting to call it, this treason on an unbelievable level, it could be treason, it could be incompetence, both could be deadly.

Gaffney: There is evidence of at best incompetence and at worst, you could argue, it’s treasonous. There’s something else that I would like to introduce as a concept I didn’t frankly know of it myself until fairly recently, also a felony offense in the U.S. code, it’s called misprision of treason. And that is a crime in which an individual, doesn’t have to be a government official but it would apply there but also to private citizens, who knows or has reason to know that seditious activity is under way and does nothing about it. I think we need to include that in the possibilities here because what our friend and co-author Andy McCarthy has called willful blindness may actually be a criminal offense under our statutes and people need to be held accountable.

I’ve called in a column I wrote a couple of weeks ago in the Washington Times for a new congressional oversight committee. Back in the Cold War as we talked about in our first program we wrestled with another totalitarian ideology that was determined to destroy us back when the McCarren Act was enacted, we had what was then called the House Un-American Activities Committee to explore what was going on, who was doing it, who was helping them do it, what the implications would be if it weren’t stopped. I think at the very least a new House Anti-American Activities Committee.

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Joyner: Muslims Are Capturing The Seven Mountains!

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on September 1, 2011 - 10:30am

A few weeks ago we noted that Rick Joyner and Frank Gaffney had teamed up to fight Islam in America and said that we could probably expect to hear a lot from them as they moved forward on this joint effort.

This week, the two have produced a special series for Joyner's "Prophetic Perspective on Current Events" program seeking to highlight the dangers of Islam and "creeping Sharia" and "civilization jihad" and all the other right-wing buzzwords.

On yesterday's program, Joyner again falsely stated that the word "Bolshevik" means "minority" - it doesn't, it actually means "majority" - in order to demonstrate how a small group of ideologues can take over a country and to warn that the Muslim Brotherhood has been secretly gaining control over, of all things, the Seven Mountains:

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Gohmert: Obama Breached His Oath Of Office; "Is Making Us Like A Third World, Corrupt Country"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on August 31, 2011 - 9:25am

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) joined Frank Gaffney yesterday on Secure Freedom Radio to discuss President Obama’s recent executive order that would prioritize the deportation of undocumented immigrants “who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk” over “people who are low priorities for deportation,” such as children, students and veterans. During his appearance on Gaffney’s show, Gohmert maintained that this executive order represents “a breach of the oath” and proves that Obama “has done more to undo the very foundation of the country: the rule of law.” Later in the interview the congressman alleged that Obama is “making us like a Third World, corrupt country where the rule of law is tossed aside”:

Gaffney: What does it mean to a polity like ours, that you have a president who says, I am going to selectively enforce the laws on immigration, for example and to what extent does that really represent a breach of his oath of office?

Gohmert: Well it does represent a breach of the oath. This is a president who has done more to undo the very foundation of the country: the rule of law, that no matter who you are, President, member of Congress, whoever it doesn’t matter, the law is to be equally applied across the board. And there’ve been exceptions where people have gotten away with stuff but never to the extent that this guy has pushed, and like you said he’s shown contempt for the lawmaking process.

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So immigration is now one more thing where he is making us like a Third World, corrupt country where the rule of law is tossed aside and it’s not equal application of the law, it’s who you know that gets you by.

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Merging Anti-Islam Activism With Prophetic Dominionism

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on August 18, 2011 - 10:22am

Jerry Boykin and Frank Gaffney were among the lead authors of the right-wing "Team B II" report "Shariah: The Threat To America" which claims that the "Muslim Brotherhood in insinuating shariah into the very heartland of America through stealthy means."

Given their mutual hatred of Islam, it makes sense that Boykin and Gaffney have continued to work together in various capacities.  By the same token, given Boykin's deep ties to to "prophet" Rick Joyner and the Oak Initiative, it likewise makes sense that we'd eventually see a merging between the prophetic dominionism of Joyner with the anti-Islam advocacy of Gaffney ... which finally emerged yesterday on Gaffney's radio program:

Rev. Rick Joyner kicks off today’s program by introducing his efforts to unite and equip Christians through The Oak Initiative. Two years ago, Joyner hosted a three day seminar to bond the Christian Church together in a time of great crisis morally, spiritually and economically. In these times, “we need to know what we believe,” says Rev. Joyner who as President of the foundation seeks to educate Christians on the crucial issues of the day, including Islamic Extremism. Through the Initiative Christians are uniting across the spectrum, and standing firm against the “Chrislam” movement, that seeks to combine both religions. “We have a responsibility as Christian leaders to defend the truth,” he says as he adamantly rejects the notion that Allah is the same God of the Bible. And he is bold in his defense: “Our Jesus is not coming back to kill all Christians who do not submit to Islam.”

The fact that Gaffney calls Joyner "one of my personal heroes" and the two are vowing to work together to fight any bridge-building efforts between Islamic and Christian leaders means we can probably expect to see a lot more from this partnership in the future.

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Virginia Delegate Hopeful Makes Mistake Of Running For Office While Muslim

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on August 17, 2011 - 9:08am

David Ramadan is a long-time Republican activist who is currently running for a seat in the Virginia State Assembly and he has secured endorsements from the likes of Eric Cantor and Ed Meese.

But he is also a Muslim, which of course means that his campaign is vehemently opposed by the anti-Islam faction on the right:

James Lafferty is chairman of the Virginia Anti-Sharia Task Force. He says Ramadan supports the "Ground Zero" Mosque in New York City and has also had some ties with the lobbying firm for Libya in the United States.

"That's not like any conservative I've ever met," Lafferty says of Ramadan's connections. "He's says that those of us who are opposed to building the Ground Zero Mosque are 'racist' and 'Islamophobes.'

"Lots of Americans are getting this sort of condescending attitude from extremists like Mr. Ramadan. We don't think he should be in the House of Delegates in Virginia. We're not even sure he should be allowed to continue to live in the United States."

Lafferty has joined with other professional anti-Muslim activists like Frank Gaffney, Pamela Geller, and Robert Spencer in sending a letter to Meese demanding he withdraw his endorsement of Ramadan until he answers questions about his "close relationship with the lobbying firm for Muammar Qadaffi’s Libya" and proves that he is "someone we can trust."

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Gaffney: Chris Christie May Be Guilty Of "Misprision Of Treason"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on August 10, 2011 - 10:18am

After New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vocally rejected claims that by appointing Muslim lawyer Sohail Mohammed to be a judge he was abetting the rise of Sharia law, calling talk of creeping Sharia “crazy,” he immediately became a target of the ‘Sharia conspiracy theory industry.’ Stop Islamization of America’s Robert Spencer said it was like if “Christie had appointed as a judge someone who was an attorney for the Ku Klux Klan, or the Aryan Nations,” and Andy McCarthy of the National Review attacked Christie for encouraging the supposedly “anti-Western, anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, anti-assimilationist” leadership in the Muslim-American community. McCarthy appeared on the Center for Security Policy head Frank Gaffney’s radio show yesterday to discuss Christie, and during the interview Gaffney jumped into the fray.

Gaffney accused Christie of “corruption” and even suggested that the governor is guilty of “misprision of treason.” Misprision of treason is a federal offense that occurs when a person “owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose” the treasonous activity to a federal official. Furthermore, whoever “is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both.”

Listen:

Gaffney: You have written the book, literally on willful blindness, is that what’s going on here with Chris Christie, Andy McCarthy? Or is there something more to it? Is there something that is of evidence of a real rot that has begun to manifest itself in terms of, well corruption may be a strong word but I wonder if that’s not an appropriate word for the extent to which we’re not only seeing brush back taking place here but truly at best willful blindness. Another term is malfeasance, or misprision of treason, excuse me. I’m really worried.

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Frank Gaffney Claims Grover Norquist Is Helping The Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrate The Conservative Movement

Submitted by Brian Tashman on April 11, 2011 - 3:36pm

Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy has repeatedly called for the conservative movement to purge Grover Norquist from the ranks, and even accused Norquist of “credentialing the perpetrators of this Muslim Brotherhood influence operation” during the controversy over CPAC. Norquist, the head of the highly influential Americans for Tax Reform, was a speaker at The Awakening despite his membership on the board of GOProud, a gay conservative group, and Gaffney’s charges of promoting Sharia law. In fact, Gaffney spoke during “Sharia Law and the Constitution” in the same room of the Thomas Road Baptist Church immediately following Norquist’s talk on “America’s Economic Condition.” During his panel, Gaffney claimed that Norquist, who co-founded the Islamic Free Market Institute, is helping advocates of Sharia law penetrate the right-wing and said it was his “personal burden for the past last twelve years to be trying to warn conservatives that one of their own has been actively involved, both enabling and empowering, Muslim Brotherhood influence operations against our movement and our country.”

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Gaffney Wants Muslims Practicing Sharia Prosecuted for Sedition

Submitted by Brian Tashman on March 14, 2011 - 1:48pm

Appearing on the television program of ACT! for America, Frank Gaffney called on the US to arrest and prosecute anyone for practicing Sharia law, the legal code of Islam. Gaffney of the far-right Center for Security Policy previously suggested that President Obama is a secret Muslim and that radical Muslims are engineering a takeover of the conservative movement. The Conservative Political Action Conference refused to give Gaffney a platform “because they didn’t want to be associated with a crazy bigot,” according to a CPAC organizer.

Speaking to ACT! for America’s leader Brigitte Gabriel, who believes Obama is a Muslim backed by terrorist groups and demanded that colleges ban the Muslim Students Association, Gaffney said that anyone who practices Sharia should be prosecuted for Sedition:

Gabriel: But a lot of people say that Sharia law is a religious practice, and maybe it should be protected by the First Amendment. Can you please tell us, is it compatible with the Constitution? Should it be protected by the First Amendment as a religious practice?

Gaffney: It is the law of the land in Saudi Arabia and Iran, and anyone who thinks that life is like in either of those two countries is the same as life in America obviously doesn’t nothing about Saudi Arabia or Iran. In fact, it is absolutely antithetical, Sharia is, to our Constitution, and the pursuit of it you said in your comment is incompatible with the Constitution’s Article VI, and therefore being a protected religious practice, it is an impermissible act of sedition, which has to be prosecuted under our Constitution.

Gaffney isn’t the first right-wing leader to say that Muslims shouldn’t be given constitutional protections, and his comments echo a push in state legislatures to ban the non-existent use of Sharia law in courts and an effort in Tennessee to criminalize the practice of Sharia. As Intisar Rabb of Boston College Law School notes, the Tennessee bill could make it “a felony for Muslims to perform everyday religious practices like praying, giving to charity, or fasting because they would be defined as banned Sharia practices.”

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