The Religion Of Peace?

Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families: Speaking in Cairo, Egypt, on June 4, 2009, President Obama told a cheering audience that “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance,” then went on to assure them that Muslims in the United States enjoy full religious liberty. Of course, the problem has never been the inability of Muslims to worship in America. The problem is the inability of Christians, Jews and persons of other faiths to worship freely in majority Muslim nations.

A cursory examination of recent news stories shows that in fact Islamic intolerance and violence toward other faiths is increasing, and the Obama Administration seems singularly uninterested.

• In Malaysia this week, three churches and a Catholic school were firebombed by Muslims upset because Malaysian Christians had used the word “Allah” for God. The protesting Muslims contended that only Muslims could use the word “Allah.”
• In Egypt, Coptic Christians celebrate Christmas on January 7th. This year’s celebration was marked by an attack on the Mar Yohana Church in which eight Christians, most of them in their 20s, were gunned down as they left services. A few months earlier, a Muslim mob burned and looted businesses owned by Christians in Farshoot, Egypt.
• Christian churches have also been attacked by followers in of the “Religion of Peace” in Algeria and Indonesia in recent weeks. And in Pakistan, 65 Christian women and children were attacked by a Muslim mob.

There are dozens of American organizations that claim to speak for Islam and regularly assure us that they renounce violence. Yet I have been unable to find any statements by these groups condemning the violence by Muslims against religious minorities around the world. Perhaps President Obama could raise the issue at next year’s White House Ramadan dinner.

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