Pat Robertson made another dumbass comment about Islam today. Breaking news, right?
This time, he compared American Muslims with Nazis:
I was thinking, you know, if you oppose Muslims, what is said? Well, you’re a bigot, right? Terrible bigotry. I wonder what were people who opposed the Nazis. Were they bigots? Why can’t we speak out against an institution that is intent on dominating us and imposing Sharia law and making us all part of a universal caliphate? That’s the goal of some of these people. Why is that bigoted? Why is it bigoted to resist Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and to say we don’t want to live under Nazi Germany?...it’s bigoted if we speak out against a force that slowly but surely is trying to exercise domination over the world.
Now, even though I just graduated from a Diocesan university, during my time in college, I had the opportunity to meet a number of Muslims. I was even semi-active in the Muslim Students Association. Some of my best friends over the past four years have been Muslims. I don’t find this Pat Robertson clip amusing in the least, because I’ve seen daily the kind of shit Muslims have to put up with – not only from conservative Christians, but from others, too.
As for the timing of Robertson’s rant – that’s more than amusing, it’s downright friggin’ hilarious.
Just mere days ago, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association (an SPLC-certified hate group, FWIW) went on a winding tirade advocating for the criminalization of profanity and blasphemy. No, seriously. Using the recent fining of NBA player Joakim Noah for using an anti-gay slur toward a fan and the suspension of Ed Schultz for using the word “slut” as models, Fischer lays out his vision for America: laws forbidding cursing and “misusing the Lord’s name.” First Amendment be damned.
That is speech that is considered so vulgar, so vile, so profane that it can be punished. You can get fined $50,000. You can lose your job for a week for using the wrong language. So don’t tell me – do not tell me – that we cannot enforce laws against profanity, laws against blasphemy, laws against misusing the Lord’s name.
Surely Fischer understands the difference between MSNBC suspending Ed Schultz for a week for using a vile, misogynistic term to describe a woman and…actually leveling charges against somebody for saying “goddamn.” Of course he does. He just doesn’t care.
This is the same Bryan Fischer that, just over the weekend, tweeted this:
That’s right – not only should profanity and blasphemy be made illegal, but so should “fornication” and “adultery.” So not only will you face a fine and/or jail time for saying “Jesus H. Christ,” but if you do it while engaging in an adulterous act, you’ll be even more up shit creek.
None of this is surprising. Right Wing Watch has compiled a good list of outrageous positions taken by Bryan Fischer.
Indeed, Fischer's latest comments are really not surprising, as he doesn’t particularly care about the Constitution. He’s on record as saying the First Amendment does not apply to Muslims.
Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment. (emphasis mine)
This is the same Bryan Fischer who said Muslims should convert to Christianity or die.
This is the same Bryan Fischer who said religious tests are permissible under the Constitution and that the religious-test clause was actually meant to protect individuals of different Christian denominations.
Almost all states required holders of public office to declare a belief in God, and many went beyond that to require a belief in the inspiration of both the Old and New Testaments, which in effect limited public service to self-professing Christians. This was just fine with the Founders, who wanted the states to have complete liberty in such matters.
But they were also clear that no religious test was to be applied as a condition of public service at the federal level. What the Founders meant by this, however, was this and this alone: an individual did not need to belong to a particular Christian denomination to be eligible for federal office. That's it.
This is the same Bryan Fischer who said homosexuality should be treated under the law the same way as the slave trade (???) and that being gay should be illegal.
The bottom line here is that, biblically, those "who practice homosexuality" should come under the purview of the law just as much as those who take people captive in order to sell them into slavery.
Oh, and that gays shouldn’t be allowed to serve in public office or teach (the latter also applies to unmarried women).
And did I mention that Bryan Fischer wants you to have at least three children?
The last thing we need is any public policy that encourages married couples to have fewer children. In fact, the American standard ought to be a minimum of three children per married couple.
God’s original instruction to our first parents was to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. This command, which theologians call the Cultural Mandate, has never been rescinded. It’s still in effect today, just as much in effect as it was when first uttered 6,000 years ago.
In order to multiply - that is, to grow in number - each couple has to have at least three children.
And then, in addition to the Bryan Fischer theocratic madness, we have this very recent gem from Tony Perkins:
Proverbs says when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. There’s a reason – because the righteous will rule in a way that is beneficial to all of society.
[…]
It’s not really separation of church and state, it’s separation of God and humanity.
James Robison joins in the fun:
What happens is when you choose leaders and they’re not righteous like Tony said, and the unrighteous rule, the people mourn. So what you’re doing is, you’re seeing the judgment of God revealed in the choices you’ve made when you choose a bad leader, a poor leader.
And by “righteous,” they mean “conservative Christian rightist.” By “bad leader,” of course, they mean anything but “conservative Christian rightist.”
It’s not just about the bedroom and the female reproductive system. Christian fundamentalists aren’t just concerned about taking away a woman’s right to choose or stopping Chrislove from sleeping with his boyfriend. They want to control EVERYTHING, with a capital E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. They want you to stop swearing, stop “goddamn”-ing, stop sleeping with the wrong people, stop being anything other than Christian, and stop electing non-Religious Rightists to public office. And they want to use the force of law to make all this happen.
You know, of all the Muslims I’ve had the privilege of befriending, I’ve never met one who even said I should convert to their religion. I’ve certainly never met one who has advocated for throwing the Constitution out the window and using the force of law to make everybody comply with their religious teachings. As for the Christian fundamentalists I’ve met who have made all of the above demands – I can’t even count.
I fear Bryan Fischer and his ilk way more than I fear any American Muslim. Fischer isn’t just a wingnut. His views aren’t that “out there.” They’re embraced by large swaths of people who will stop at nothing to control every lever of government. That’s the real threat to America.
