REV. CHICKEN LITTLE WAKES UP
What took you so long Rev.? At least this time he's right. But his credibility is shot. It will be interesting to see if the Political Correctedness of Islamophobia quashes this one.
Pat Robertson Warns of Rising Political Clout by Muslims
Christian Coalition founder and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson the election of Muslims like Rep. Keith Ellison and local officials in Houston pose a threat to America.
"The curse of God is to bring in people who don't share your point of view and then ultimately destroy your civilization," Robertson said March 20 on his "700 Club" TV program. "Well, that's what we're facing for our children and grandchildren."
Robertson's comments followed a segment on increasing numbers of Muslims becoming involved in politics at all levels. It viewed efforts like the Muslim American Society's Voting is Power campaign as evidence of Islam's growing political clout.
Robertson said Islam's agenda is to "take over the government and that everybody else is a second-class citizen."
"That is the primary doctrine of Islam, and when Islamic people take over before long they want to institute Sharia, or the law according to the Quran, which has to do with cutting off the hands of thieves and stoning adulterous women to death and all the rest of it," he said.
While the moderate face of Islam being presented to Americans doesn't say that, Robertson said, the question is if they are really Muslims and whether "they really believe in what the Quran says or not."
"If they're really dedicated Muslims, they believe in takeover and they believe that everybody else is a second-class citizen," Robertson said. "You look in Saudi Arabia now--a Christian can't even build a house higher than a Muslim--I mean the discrimination is unbelievable. And much of the Muslim activity in America is being financed by the extreme Wahabi sect in Saudi Arabia. It's a fact of life. It's the way it is. I'm not being discriminatory. It's just the way it is. That's what they believe. Now these moderates, do they say, 'We don't believe that?' They haven't said it."
Robertson warned that a dedicated minority has the ability to take over the country. "They can take over the caucuses of parties," he said. "They can take over the party conventions, and they can nominate the people of their choice and then they can raise the money to put that person in."
The Virginia Beach televangelist speaks with some authority. Behind closed doors with state Christian Coalition leaders at the 1997 "Road to Victory" conference, Robertson said the only way to save the country from God's wrath was for the Christian Coalition to elect a president who would implement the organization's agenda.
"Now, God has put a mandate on us, because this nation is in crisis," he said, according to a tape recording circulated by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "I know we are wealthy; there's no question about it. But I do not believe that God is going to allow this nation to go unpunished forever if we have slaughtered 35 million innocent babies."
Robertson in 1997 boasted he achieved his earlier goal of conservative control of Congress by 1996 two years early. The Christian Coalition had a "major presence" in the Republican Party, though it still hadn't "gotten the influence I think we ought to have" within the GOP. His next goal, he said, was to elect a president in 2000.
"We can hold the Congress, get in some more good people into the Congress and into the governors' mansions and then focus on the White House," he said.
According to AU, Robertson said the time had come for the coalition to demand that Congress implement its agenda, especially U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook's so-called Religious Freedom Amendment, which critics said would all but repeal church-state separation.
"We just tell these guys, 'Look, we put you in power in 1994, and we want you to deliver,'" Robertson said. "We're tired of temporizing. Don't give us all this stuff about you've got a different agenda. This is your agenda. This is what you're going to do this year. And we're going to hold your feet to the fire while you do it."
In his March 20 broadcast, Robertson said: "There's no doctrine of faith that I know in any Protestant denomination that calls for the takeover of the government and making other people second-class citizens. I don't know of one denomination, Protestant or Catholic, that has that agenda, but yet Islam has just that agenda."
This week, however, McClatchy Newspapers pointed out that Mona Goodling, a senior aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who on Monday decided to plead the Fifth Amendment rather than testify before a congressional investigation of hiring and firing of federal prosecutors, received her law degree from Robertson's Regent University, a graduate school that produces "Christian leaders who will make a difference, who will change the world."
The American Muslim Society, a non-profit organization formed in 1992, lists among its objectives to "encourage the participation of Muslims in building a virtuous and moral society" and promote family and human values in accordance with Islamic teaching.
The Voting is Power program, according to a Web page, is intended "to inform and empower the Muslim Americans on the politics, legal issues, candidates and elections at federal and state levels, and thereby to become a catalyst for positive change."
"In recent years, many dangerous laws were passed in the name of national security," it said. "The Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act, new repressive immigration laws and profiling measures are considered, and intrusive Presidential Executive Orders are released regularly. Whether these laws and policies increase our national security is highly questionable. But these have been widely used to profile and persecute Muslims in America."
The Web site also cited politicians and highly placed government officials like Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, who make "Muslim-bashing part of their everyday rhetoric, with no repercussion."
"In our domestic and foreign policies, we have made it acceptable to attack Muslims," the group said. "Only with our vigorous commitment to the electoral process, we can begin to change this unfavorable climate."
Among bills opposed by the group in 2006 was the Public Expression of Religion Act, which would stop attorneys who successfully challenge government violations of the Establishment Clause from being able to recover attorney fees.
"In other words, if a Muslim American sues the government for discrimination and wins the suit, he/she will no longer be able to recover the legal fees from the government," according to the VIP analysis. "The bill has only one purpose: to prevent lawsuits challenging unconstitutional government actions advancing religion."
Robertson told viewers on his broadcast: "We've been harassed by People for the American Way. We have been harassed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. We have been harassed by the federal court system. But if the Christians won't stand up and not worry about the IRS, not worry about if you're going to lose your tax exemption, not worry about whatever, because you're going to lose your country if Christians don't mobilize and vote."
Bob Allen is managing editor of EthicsDaily.com.
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