Chairman’s Report for July 9, 2010

THE PRESIDENCY

OBAMA AND SAUDI HATE CRIMES – On June 30th, President Barack Obama met yet again with Saudi King Abdullah at the White House. Saudi royalty receive truly royal treatment from the White House despite the fact that the Kingdom distributes books filled with hatred and despicable anti-democratic lies throughout the world. Just across the Potomac River from the White House the Saudi Islamic Academy uses those textbooks to teach that democracy is an apostate religion that must be destroyed.
In a recent column Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute, who also holds a seat on the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom, wrote: “Saudi textbooks teach, along with many other noxious lessons, that Jews and Christians are “enemies,” and they dogmatically instruct that various groups of “unbelievers” – apostates (which includes Muslim moderates who reject Saudi Wahhabi doctrine), polytheists (which includes Shiites), and Jews – should be killed. Under the Saudi Education Ministry’s method of rote learning, these teachings amount to indoctrination, starting in first grade and continuing through high school, where militant jihad on behalf of “truth” is taught as a sacred duty. These textbooks are used not only in Saudi Arabia but in Saudi-funded schools around the world.”
The main discussion between Obama and King Abdullah was the future of Israel. The King told the president of the debt ridden United States what he must do about Israel, to remain in the favor of the Saudi Kingdom. The United States owes Saudi interests hundreds of billions of dollars and as a result cannot criticize the Saudi Kingdom for its torturous human rights record that includes stoning women to death and hanging homosexuals in public.
Barack Obama’s Muslim advisor is Dalia Mogahed, an Islamic ideologue who supports Islamic sharia. She is a defender and supporter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), both of which have strong links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

FREEDOM OF WORSHIP, NOT FREEDOM OF RELIGION? – Freedom of worship is not the same as freedom of religion. Christians in Morocco and Jordan have freedom of worship, but they do not have freedom of religion. While they can attend their church and worship, they may not promote their faith openly, and converts from Islam to Christianity can be severely punished. In Saudi Arabia “apostasy” carries the death penalty. Now President Barack Obama and his Administration have abandoned the phrase “freedom of religion” and replaced it with “freedom of worship.”
“Freedom of worship” was first used by President Obama in his remarks at the memorial service for the victims of the Islamic jihad attack at Fort Hood. Just a few days later he once again referred to worship rather than religion in several speeches in Asia.
This appears to be Obama Administration policy, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also dumped the term “religious freedom.” In a December, 2009 speech at Georgetown University, she used “freedom of worship” three times but never mentioned “freedom of religion.” This year in a talk to Senators, she used “freedom of worship” four times.
As mentioned above, freedom of worship is the right to pray within the confines of a place of worship. “It excludes the right to raise your children in your faith; the right to have religious literature; the right to meet with co-religionists; the right to raise funds; the right to appoint or elect your religious leaders, and to carry out charitable activities, to evangelize, [and] to have religious education or seminary training,” said Nina Shea who has been alarmed by the trend of redefining religious rights by the Obama Administration to a status that is acceptable to those who promote Islamic sharia law.

IRF APPOINTEE A TOTAL JOKE – That is what one congressional staff member e-mailed me when the “reverend” Susan Johnson Cook was appointed as the Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom. Cook is a typical “whites, Jews and the establishment hold down the black people” preacher from Brooklyn, New York. While her rhetoric is not as harsh at that of Jeremiah Wright, they believe the same garbage. As a female ordained minister she will not be accepted by most Christians in the nations where repression against them is the worst. Muslims will have as much respect for her as they do for Hillary Clinton, which is no respect at all. Cook has no international experience and has no concept at all of the persecution facing Christians. In her new role, I will bet just about any amount of money that in her first major speech she attacks Israel. So why was she picked by Obama?
Hillary Clinton demanded that Cook be the nominee because Cook was a major fund raiser and supporter of Hillary Clinton’s when she ran for Senate and then for President. Cook was also a member of President Bill Clinton’s Domestic Policy Council. In short the office of Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom is now a dead zone.

CHRISTIAN “TERRORIST” GIVEN ASYLUM –Mosab Hassan Yousef’s was the strangest immigration case I have seen in some thirty years of working on religious freedom issues. Here are the facts: A young man, born into a high ranking Islamic terrorist family, converted to Christianity and worked undercover for Israeli intelligence to stop terror attacks against Israel and the United States, and then sought asylum in the United States. He wrote a book, Son of Hamas, detailing his upbringing in the home of an Islamic terrorist, his conversion to Christianity, and his work to stop terror attacks against innocent civilians.
The Obama Administration, knowing all the details of his life and his work with Israeli intelligence to stop terror attacks, tagged him as a “terrorist sympathizer” and ordered his deportation to the West Bank where he would, of course, be immediately murdered. To put it bluntly the Obama Administration marked this hero who had saved an untold number of lives, for torture and death at the hands of the Hamas terror organization.
Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-CO, organized a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano signed by 22 House members urging her to grant asylum to Mosab Hassan Yousef. Israel sent Mr. Yousef’s Shin Bet handler, Gonen Ben-Itzhak, to San Diego to testify on behalf of his former agent and explain how many lives Yousef had saved. But, by the time the hearing started the last week of June, the Obama Administration realized that the publicity was so damning that Yousef could not be sent to his death. The Immigration Judge, with virtually no comment, granted Yousef asylum. No witnesses were called and no statements were made.
But the question remains: Why did the Obama Administration want to send this young hero to his death in the first place, even though he had stopped so many terrorist attacks against Israelis and Americans?

THE CONGRESS
ACLU ON THE RIGHT SIDE? – The so called “Disclose Act” passed recently by the House, allegedly to “reform” political campaigns, is the most undemocratic bill ever passed by Congress and is so unconstitutional that even the ACLU is against it.
The Disclose Act prohibits the Religious Freedom Coalition and all other non-profits with a membership of less than one million from publishing comments on candidates for public office up to four months before an election. Why were large organizations allowed to do what the rest of us can’t? It’s because the far leftwing Moveon.org has over one million members, while no conservative groups have that many. A notable exception is the NRA.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) is not a conservative organization; it is a single issue organization. The single issue of the NRA is gun rights. NRA leaders worked with the liberals in Congress to write the language of the Disclose Act in such a way as to exempt their organization. To do this Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to agree to allow organizations who had over 1,000,000 members and who had not accepted more than $10 million in federal contracts to be exempt from the Disclose Act. Because of the provision brokered by the NRA, the ultra liberal AARP can comment on candidates, but the smaller but conservative group 60 Plus cannot. Under the proposed law this Chairman’s Report would be prohibited from mentioning the pro-abortion views of Senator Harry Reid, for example. Even the ACLU wrote that the Disclose Act would harm significantly the “speech and association rights of Americans.”

REAFFIRMING IN GOD WE TRUST – ”In God We Trust” is the official motto of the United States, yet it was a long hard fight led by Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA) to have the motto visible in the new Congressional Visitors Center (CVC) at the Capitol Building. It took over a year and the passage of a congressional resolution to force the Architect of the Capitol to display “In God We Trust” in the CVC. Now Congressman Forbes has introduced H.Con.Res.274, which not only reaffirms the national motto of In God We Trust, but calls on Americans to trust God once again.
The Democrat controlled House has referred the resolution to the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. The resolution has 72 cosponsors, most of whom are members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus. To move the resolution forward, congressmen need to hear from their constitutionals that they favor H.Con.Res.274.

CULTURE AND RELIGION
SUPREMES: CHRISTIAN GROUPS CAN’T DEMAND CHRISTIAN LEADERS – In the closing days of this Supreme Court season, religious rights and rights of private association were trampled. By a 5-4 vote the Supreme Court held that recognized student groups at universities do not have a right to choose members and leaders who adhere to their core beliefs. The Court stated that public universities can require student groups to accept any student as a member or leader regardless of that person’s beliefs. Under the terms of the Court’s decision, Christian groups must accept atheist members and allow them to run for office.
As an extreme, the rules imposed by the Court would force a Jewish group promoting immigration to Israel to accept Muslim members who promote the destruction of Israel.

The case came about because a University of California law school forced the Christian Legal Society to accept non Christians. In the decision Justice Ginsburg pointed out that university officials had selectively enforced its “all comers” policy, by allowing the Latino group La Raza to have rules restricting its membership. La Raza translates to “The Race” and its bylaws reveal that it is a racist organization that promotes Hispanic supremacy. Based on Ginsberg’s statement the CLS could demand treatment at least equal with that of La Raza.

INTERNATIONAL
CONGRESS AND MOROCCO – On June 17th, Congressional hearings were held on the continuing persecution and expulsion of Christians from the “moderate Islamic” nation of Morocco. I wanted to be there, but I had commitments in the Middle East and just could not return to Washington. I have written previously about the sudden shift of policy against Christians in Morocco. Three of my best friends in Congress, Senator Inhofe and Congressmen Frank Wolf and Trent Franks, testified at the hearings. They hit hard at Morocco, and Senator Inhofe displayed letters he had written to the King on the repression and the expulsions. The King responded to the Senator saying that Morocco had “religious freedom,” but that the more than 120 Christians expelled were “criminals” because they sought to convert the “vulnerable” from Islam.
I have travelled to Morocco on fact finding missions. Morocco is very proud of the fact that it has small Christian and Jewish populations that have “freedom of worship.” The Muslim nation claims that “freedom of worship” and “religious freedom” are one and the same, which apparently President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton agree with. Obviously “freedom of worship” does not include sharing the Gospel message with anyone.
Three Christian “leaders” who have personal interests and special privileges in Morocco, held a news conference at the same time as the congressional hearings trying to spread the tale that yes, those who operate orphanages are criminals and Morocco is a great place for foreign Christians. These “leaders” were: Rev. Rob Schenck, president, the National Clergy Council; Rev. Kenneth Barney, senior pastor, New Antioch Baptist Church, Randallstown, Maryland; and “Rev.” Harry Thomas, president, Come Alive Ministries International and producer of Friendship Fest, Marrakech, Morocco.
Muslim nations including Morocco and the totalitarian states of Iran and Saudi Arabia are attempting to move forward resolutions in the United Nations which would criminalize any insult to Islam. Offering a Muslim a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ would be considered an insult to Islam.

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William J. Murray, Chairman
Religious Freedom Coalition, 601 Pennsylvania Ave, NW #900 , Washington, DC 20004 * (202) 543-0300)