military

Last week the Washington Times (briefly) wondered if ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner was part of a larger plot to bring Sharia law into America because his wife is Muslim and a close aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. While the Washington Times eventually pulled the article, the conservative blogosphere is still asking questions.

Rich Swier, an activist for Tea Party Nation and ACT! for America, claims that Weiner and President Obama “have partnered with the Muslim Brotherhood”:

Many Americans are awakening to the term "Muslim Brotherhood". They are also noticing that the Obama administration has an ongoing love affair with this shariah Islamist organization. The most recent example is provided by Pajamas Media when they discovered that Huma Abedin's — wife of former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner and deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton — mother was reported as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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It is now clear that President Obama and his administration have partnered with the Muslim Brotherhood. This is dangerous for our national security and akin to FDR partnering with the Soviet Union during WWII. But wait FDR did and look what happened afterword - the Cold War.

Eileen Toplansky of The American Thinker, a prominent conservative blog frequently cited by Rush Limbaugh, also paints Abedin as a Muslim spy:

Moreover, one needs to question why Huma Abedin, a member of a family of devout Muslims, would ever marry a Jewish Congressman -- in a ceremony officiated by Bill Clinton. Sharia law clearly forbids Muslims from marrying non-believers, so what does this portend?

Furthermore, when Huma Abedin accompanied Hillary Clinton to the Dar El-Hekma women's college in Saudi Arabia, where Huma's mother is co-founder and vice dean, it was reported that "Hillary explained that Huma holds an important and sensitive position in her office." Where was the scrutiny?

Why are so many at the highest levels of American government ignoring the methodology of Islamists like [Fethullah] Gulen, who has declared that the best way to seize power is to lie in wait "with the patience of a spider" in order to "wait for people to get caught in the web"? Is Clinton so naïve?

Thus, Huma Abedin's position with Clinton in the State Department, as well as her marriage to Representative Weiner, has given her enormous exposure "to state secrets and access to the inner workings of Congress."

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Last year, Obama appointed two devout Muslims to Homeland Security. Obama's record concerning Islamic terror was alarming from the beginning of his term and it has only become more entrenched.

Congressman Keith Ellison aka Keith Hakim, who converted to Islam, is already in place in Congress. His connections to CAIR are troubling.

Is the Weiner scandal really covering up a far more disturbing scenario whereby jihadists continue to infiltrate and influence American universities, military installations, homeland security, even local police forces, all while the press ignores the steady encroachment of these radicals who seek to overturn and destroy America?

The disgraceful indifference by the general press to Weiner's in-laws and their connections to the Muslim Brotherhood keeps eroding America's ability to rout those who wish to see her destroyed.

The AFA's resident spokesbigot Bryan Fischer operates on a very consistent pattern:  he spends months saying and writing outrageously bigoted things but when some pressure starts to mount over all of the bigoted things he says, he lashes out and accuses his detractors of lying about what he said.

He has done it several times before, and now that Gov. Rick Perry is getting some heat for associating with Fischer and the AFA, he has done it again, taking issue with this Tim Murphy piece in Mother Jones.  Fischer claims that Murphy "strung together a litany of lies and distortions" and then proceeds to try and set the record straight.

In three instances Fischer fully admits to the views attributed to him - gays should be banned from public office and Muslims should be banned from the military and from building mosques:

- "gays should be banned from holding public office" — This is accurate. I do believe this, for the same reason that I believe Anthony Weiner should resign, as did Larry Craig, John Ensign and Mark Foley and numerous other Republicans caught in sexual misconduct. Aberrant sexuality morally disqualifies a practitioner from public office, and whatever else homosexual behavior is, it is aberrant sexual behavior.

- "there should be a permanent ban on mosque construction in the United States" — Partly true. What I have recommended is that local planning and zoning boards no longer issue permits — what about the word "permit" do people not understand? — for the building of mosques. This is because 81% of the mosques in America distribute literature that supports violent jihad and the imposition of sharia law by force, and 95% of Muslims who attend prayers regularly attend one of these mosques. I have suggested our policies toward Islam should be the same as our policies toward the KKK and white supremacist groups, since they are equally and violently antisemitic. Whatever the NAACP thinks ought to be done to halt the spread of the KKK and white supremacists I'll be happy to adopt as our policy against the spread of Islam.

- "Muslims should be prohibited from serving in the armed forces" — True. Serving in the United States military is a privilege not a right, and we should have no room in our military for those whose religion teaches them to "slay the idolaters wherever you find them" (Surah 9:5). If you don't think this policy suggestion makes sense, ask the families of Major Nidal Malik Hasan's homicidal rampage at Ft. Hood, done in the name of Allah.

But Fischer takes issue with several other assertions ... and, in typical Fischer fashion, attempts to clarify the record by more or less reiterating the very thing he claims he never said in the first place:

1. "gays caused the Holocaust." False. What I spoke is the simple truth: the Nazi Party was responsible for the Holocaust. If the question is then further asked, who was responsible for the Nazi Party, the answer, as a matter of simple historical truth: homosexual thugs. The Nazi Party was actually formed in a gay bar in Munich, and virtually all of Hitler's early enforcers in his rise to power were homosexuals.

Here is what I wrote in my column on what Nazi Germany teaches us about the wisdom of allowing open homosexuals in the military:

"Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews. Gays in the military is an experiment that has been tried and found disastrously and tragically wanting. Maybe it's time for Congress to learn a lesson from history."

So I clearly lay the blame for the Holocaust on the Nazi Party, but attribute the rise of the Nazi Party to homosexual brutes. That's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of historical fact, as inconvenient as that fact may be to the mavens of political correctness on the left.

2. "gays...are planning on doing it (the Holocaust) again." False.

Here is the transcript of my remarks:

"Homosexual activists, when it comes to freedom of speech, are Nazis. When it comes to freedom of religion, they are Nazis. There is no room in their world for dissent, there is no room in their world for disagreement, there is no room in their world for criticism. You criticize homosexual behavior, they tag you as a bigot and a homophobe and then they go to work to silence you just like the Roman Catholic Church did in the days of Galileo — it's no different; it's the Spanish Inquisition all over again.

"Ladies and gentlemen, they are Nazis. Do not be under any illusions about what homosexual activists will do with your freedoms and your religion if they have the opportunity. They'll do the same thing to you that the Nazis did to their opponents in Nazi Germany."

Clearly the parallel I was drawing here is that homosexuals are out to suppress freedom of speech, religion, and dissent just as the Nazis did. This is indisputable.

So Fischer never said that gays caused the Holocaust and they are going to commit another one against Christians - he simply said that the Holocaust was the fault of the Nazis (who were all gay) and that, if given the chance, gays would do the same thing again today.

So you can see that that is totally different. 

Fischer also claims he never called for the forced conversion of Muslims or their deportation from America:

5. "foreign Muslims should either be exterminated or forced to convert to Christianity" — Horrendous distortion. What I said was that, if we are attacked from or by a Muslim nation, we should go in with military force and neutralize the threat. Then I suggest we bring missionaries in, since it is Christianity that has made the United States the freest, strongest, and most prosperous nation on earth. If they don't want to listen to our missionaries, fine. We'll bring them and our soldiers home. But we let them know that if you attack us again and we have to come back, this time we'll come back not with missionaries but with overwhelming lethal force.

6. "American Muslims should be deported" — Wrong again. What I have written is that American Muslims who have been naturalized of course should remain, as well as American citizens who convert to Islam. But I do believe we should not extend citizenship any longer to immigrant Muslims, even the ones who are here legally. When their legal immigration provisions expire, we should happily bear the cost of repatriating them to their homelands. Immigration is a privilege, not a right, and the god of Islam teaches his followers to kill Americans. It's simply bad policy to extend citizenship to people who have a solemn, sacred, religious obligation to exterminate us.

Fischer was quite clear when he said that when the US goes into a Muslim nation, it must try to convert them to Christianity but if the Muslims refuse to convert, then the next time the US returns, it will be to kill them. 

Likewise, Fischer has asserted that simply by virtue of being a Muslim, they are guilty of treason and that Muslims living in the US ought to be deported.

Yet, somehow Fischer thinks it is an unfair distortion of his views to claim that he supports forced conversion and the deportation of Muslims.

Fischer has a long history of saying openly bigoted things on an almost daily basis ... and he has just as long a history of claiming that all of the bigoted things he said were taken out of context or misrepresented.

As I have said before, it is utterly pointless to try and have any sort of rational debate with Fischer ... and this is further evidence of just why that is the case. 

During his show for American Family Radio, the president of the American Family Association Tim Wildmon claimed that President Obama “doesn’t give a rip” about the military because he supported the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. “Folks, remember elections have consequences, President Obama wanted to force open homosexuality in the military, and that’s what he’s done, with the help of Congress,” Wildmon said, “So we elected a Commander-in-Chief who doesn’t give a rip about the Marines or the Army, he just wants to force homosexuality into every place that he can.” Along with Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, and guest Elaine Donnelly, the three discussed the last-ditch strategies to preserve the discriminatory policy by the GOP-controlled House.

Ever since Herman Cain appeared on the presidential scene, he has been Bryan Fischer's candidate of choice.  Cain has been on Fischer's radio program multiple times, most recently promising Fischer that he would not appoint any Muslims if he became president.

That was news to Fischer's ears because he openly attacks Muslims on a daily basis, demanding that they be banned from immigrating to the United States, serving in the military, and building mosques while demanding they convert to Christianity or else be charged with treason and deported.

But while Cain's pledge not to appoint any Muslims won his accolades from Fischer, his statement that he would be willing to appoint an openly gay person to serve in his administration probably will not:

During a question and answer session in Pella, IA this afternoon, ThinkProgress asked Cain if he would be opposed to appointing a qualified gay person to serve in his cabinet. Cain said he would have no problem appointing someone who was openly gay, then immediately refreshed his anti-Muslim rhetoric. Leaning in conspiratorially, Cain explained gay appointees are “not going to try to put sharia laws in our laws,” before laughing.

This is undoubtedly not sit well with Fischer, who has openly declared that "homosexuals should be disqualified from public office:

Character is an important qualification for public service, and what an individual does in his private sexual life is a critical component of character. A man who ignores time-honored standards of sexual behavior simply cannot be trusted with the power of public office.

So how will Fischer respond to this answer and, more importantly, how long will it take Cain to back-peddle from it once his base of ultra-right-wing supporters make their displeasure known?

Last week Bryan Fischer announced his support for laws banning profanity and blasphemy and followed that up over the weekend with a Tweet calling for laws banning fornication and adultery:

And this got me thinking about what life in America would look like if Bryan Fischer got his way:

• Muslims would be banned from serving in the armed forces.
• Muslims would be banned from immigrating to the United States.
• Muslims citizens would be charged with treason and deported.
• Muslims would be banned from building mosques.
• Muslims would be denied all First Amendment protections.
• Muslims would be prohibited from forming student associations.
• Muslims would be required to convert to Christianity.
• Welfare would be denied to African Americans who "rut like rabbits."
• Medicare and Social Security would be eliminated as "ungodly."
• Religious tests for serving in public office would be allowed, especially for Mormons.
• Homosexuality would be illegal.
• Gays would be treated as criminals.
• Gays would be banned from serving in public office.
• Gays and unmarried women would be banned from serving as teachers.
• Children would be ready for work and marriage at age 16.
• Married couples would be expected to have a minimum of three children.
• Bears would be shot on sight.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the House Armed Services Committee Authorization bill, which included three amendments designed to delay the repeal of the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

With the Senate taking up the bill, Rep. Randy Forbes, along with Bishop Harry Jackson and a group of right-wing pastors, held a press conference to encourage the Senate to pass the pro-DADT amendments.

Attempting to seem semi-reasonable, Jackson began the conference by claiming that amendments intending to make the repeal of DADT more difficult and time-consuming weren’t about DADT itself, but instead about “clarity.”

That line of reasoning lasted all of 15 minutes. By the time Q&A rolled around, Jackson and the Religious Right figures that had joined him used all of the same tired arguments that have been used against DADT in the past. When asked if the repeal of DADT would hurt recruitment, Bishop John Neal claimed that he wasn’t sure, but what he was really worried about was the “close quarters” that soldiers have to share, and what would happen when there was “only one spigot” on the shower.

This again?

Multiple speakers claimed that “no one should be marginalized for their religious beliefs,” but they all seem to believe that marginalizing people for their sexual orientation is perfectly acceptable. One of the speakers, John Neil, went so far as to claim that the military discriminates all the time, by not allowing, for example, extraordinarily tall people to pilot cramped fighter jets. Because that’s exactly the same situation.

Despite their claims to be promoting the rights of chaplains, this group showed that their real goal was restricting the rights of the LGBT community, going so far as to assert that Martin Luther King Jr. would disapprove of same-sex marriage:

Jackson: There were members of his family who were for gay marriage, others were against. I know this: King basically spoke from two vantage points that he thought were very, very sacred within the American culture - one was the Bible and the other was the Constitution. And I think what we're dealing with here is that from a biblical perspective, King no doubt would have been with us biblically. And I think, again, the lines of what is exactly the right of an American to do, I've got a hard time believing that "the pursuit of happiness" crosses into some of these areas. So I think that King would be with us, as a preacher first.

Question: Just to clarify: you're saying Dr. King would be against gay marriage?

Jackson: Yes. Very specifically, yes. Because it's against what is clearly written in Scripture. And if you listen to any of his messages, that clarion call to scriptural accountability even to the point when his own house was firebombed and folks came up in Montgomery armed and ready to go fight folks, he said "no, no, no, we will turn the other cheek."

So there was not just a tacit biblical acceptance or kind of whitewashing, if I can use that phrase, certain kinds of behaviors and say this is Christian, this is not. I think there was an inherent commitment to those issues in our social culture.

As we noted last week, Bryan Fischer has made it his new cause in life to prove that "the number one class of people who are committing hate crimes today are homosexual activists."

Fischer bases this idea upon a definition of a hate crime that he took off us USLegal.com, which reads:

"A hate crime is usually defined by state law as one that involves threats, harassment, or physical harm and is motivated by prejudice against someone's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability."

Fischer has seized upon the phrases "harassment" and "religion" and is now basically using them to declare anything and everything he doesn't like to be a "hate crime."

Last week it was situation with Peter Vidmar, who stepped down from his position with the 2012 U.S. Olympic team over his support for Proposition 8, and today is it some case involving a doctor in England:

If facing harassment because others have prejudice against your religion is a hate crime, then Dr. Richard Scott of the U.K. is the latest victim of the P.C. police.

He is facing an official sanction from the professional medical body in England, the General Medical Council (GMC) for having the effrontery to suggest to a patient that nurturing his spiritual life might be one part of a holistic course of treatment.

It makes no difference to the Tolerance Nazis that study after study has shown the beneficial health effects of faith in God and prayer, or that Dr. Scott only broached the subject with this patient after a lengthy consultation, and after medical checks had been performed and referrals for further care were arranged.

Nope, the Torquemadas of the left want to put Dr. Scott on the rack and punish him despite his unblemished 28-year record and despite the fact the patient in question is still seeking care at his clinic and so himself is apparently not criminally offended in the least.

This case doesn't even have anything to do with gays, so Fischer is now claiming that it is "secular fundamentalists" who are committing this particular hate crime.

The interesting thing about this new development is that Fischer intentionally overlooks the other elements of the definition of a hate crime, most notably the listing of "sexual orientation."

And given that, in Fischer's view, basically any criticism or pressure put on any conservative or Christian is "harassment" and therefore a "hate crime," let us point out that Fischer and the AFA led the charge to fire Kevin Jennings and impeach Judge Vaughn Walker, solely because they were gay:

AFA calls for resignation of Kevin Jennings, “Safe and Drug Free Schools” head

The American Family Association today called for the resignation of Kevin Jennings, the head of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools in the Department of Education.

“This man is not a good role model for the nation’s children, nor will he fairly represent all Americans due to his spiteful attitude toward evangelical Christians,” said AFA President Tim Wildmon.

Time to impeach Judge Vaughn Walker

Contact your representative today and urge him to start impeachment proceedings

August 5, 2010

Yesterday (August 4), U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker single-handedly overturned California's Prop. 8, which elevated protection for one-man, one-woman marriage to its state constitution.

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Judge Walker's ruling is not "good Behaviour." He has exceeded his constitutional authority and engaged in judicial tyranny.

Judges are not, in fact, unaccountable. They are accountable to Congress, which can remove them from office.

Impeachment proceedings, according to the Constitution, begin in the House of Representatives. It's time for you to put your congressman on record regarding the possible impeachment of Judge Walker.

If Peter Vidmar stepping down and some foreign doctor facing possible discipline are examples of "hate crimes," what just what is the AFA prolonged and orchestrated campaign to get two gay public servants fired from the jobs?

And can I point out that Islam is also a "religion" ... and Fischer has been leading a full-blown crusade against Muslims for years now.

So by Fischer's own standard, he is personally guilty of committing hate crimes on a daily basis. 

Ever since Mike Huckabee announced that he would not be running for president in 2012, countless pieces have been written speculating which remaining candidate benefits the most from his decision.  Is it Michele Bachmann?  It is Tim Pawleny? Is it Herman Cain or Rick Santorum? 

But I have a different question:  which remaining candidate will be the one to welcome the support of the fringe Religious Right leaders who made up Huckabee's Faith and Family Values Coalition the last time around?

In 2008, Huckabee could get no love from the "establishment" Religious Right leaders, but he was adored by the ultra-radical fringe leaders of the movement like Janet Porter, who believes that America has been cursed for electing President Obama and that Obama wanted to commit genocide against the American population and lock conservatives up in internment camps. Porter also believes that Christians should be in complete control of government and that tornadoes are God's wrath against us our nation for our positions on abortion and Israel.

Or what about Rick Scarborough, the self-proclaimed "Christocrat" who believes that AIDS is God's judgment and that it is his duty to "mix church and state God's way" in order to stop the country's "slide further into Communism/Socialism [and] sexual anarchy led by sodomites."

And let's not forget Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, who is reportedly teaching law students to break the law in order to fight the gay agenda while working to keep "moral perverts" out of the military, defeat the "Antichrist spirit" that seeks to destroy marriage, and prevent Obama from becoming a global dictator.

These kinds of activists were Huckabee's bread-and-butter, along with End Times obsessives like Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, Homeschool champions like Mike Farris, and the boycott-happy head of the American Family Association Don Wildmon.

Where are these activists going to go now that Huckabee is not running? 

They certainly are not just going to sit on the sidelines, so some lucky GOP candidate is eventually going to pick up their endorsement ... and all the crazy right-wing baggage that comes right along with it.

In an email to supporters, Concerned Women For America CEO Penny Nance said that they have one final opportunity to prevent the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Nance tells supporters that while the House GOP is likely to approve amendments to three Defense bill that would block the repeal and restrict gay-rights in the military, the Senate would be a graver challenge because Majority Leader Harry Reid “is beholden to the homosexual lobby.” She asks activists to show the Republicans support “in light of the likely response from the radical homosexual activists.”

Nance writes:

The repeal of DADT will create undue hardships for our military and was passed to fulfill President Obama's campaign promise to homosexual activists. Even though the repeal was signed into law, it has not yet taken effect, and we have been fighting to ensure that it won't.

We have worked with House offices to repeal and delay this misguided law. We have encouraged congressional hearings that highlight the problems and costs associated with imposing this social agenda on our military. And we supported several amendments on the Defense Authorization:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler's (R-Missouri) amendment defined marriage as a union between a man and woman for purposes of military benefits, regulations, and policies. It passed the HASC 39-22.

Rep. Todd Akin's (R-Missouri) amendment prohibited using military facilities for "same-sex marriage" and prohibited chaplains from conducting the ceremonies. It passed the HASC 38-23.

Rep. Duncan Hunter's (R-California) amendment would require all of the service chiefs - and not just President Obama, Secretary of Defense Gates, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mullen - to certify the repeal of DADT.

We expect the Defense Authorization to go to the House floor soon. Please call your representative and ask him to support the Defense Authorization with these amendments. Please thank Representatives Hartzler, Akin, and Hunter for their leadership on these amendments, especially in light of the likely response from the radical homosexual activists. Also, it is important to thank HASC Chairman Buck McKeon (R-California) and Personnel Subcommittee Chairman Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) for holding hearings and shedding light on these important issues.

It is important to also focus on the Senate, because Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is beholden to the homosexual lobby. Please call your senators and ask them to support the Defense Authorization passed by the HASC.