Obama Rejects FDR Prayer for WWII Memorial

Sent along by my good friend Norm Gersman in New York.

At Fox News, "Obama Administration Opposes FDR Prayer at WWII Memorial."

And for your late-night reading pleasure, check the roundup at Proof Positive: "Saturday Link-Around."

'Occupy' Protest at St. Paul's Cathedral in London Splits Anglican Church

At New York Times:

LONDON — In a city where demonstrations of every kind are part of the daily syncopation, there has rarely been any with quite the same potential for amplifying the protesters’ cause as the one that has settled in recently on the historic forecourt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, setting off a painful crisis of conscience for the Church of England .

For the last 15 days, St. Paul’s has been the backdrop for London’s counterpart to the Occupy Wall Street tent city in Zuccotti Square in New York. Here, the protest has taken on aspects of a medieval carnival, a jumbled tent city with buskers and rappers and clothing stalls and a panoply of banners and a makeshift cafeteria. There have been pet dogs, and a man dressed as Jesus declaiming against the usurers in the temple.

Where Princess Diana appeared to pealing bells after her marriage to Prince Charles, where a nation grateful for deliverance in war watched the caissons arrive for the funerals of Lord Nelson and Winston Churchill, beneath Christopher Wren’s great dome that stood defiant amid the smoke and fire of the Luftwaffe’s blitz, Britain’s anticapitalist battalions have pitched camp.

Scores of similar encampments have sprung up in cities around the world, echoing the continuing protest in Wall Street’s heart against the bankers and corporate barons and complicit politicians the protesters hold responsible for global financial distress.

But few, if any, of the protests outside New York have had the resonance the St. Paul’s campers have achieved in Britain by choosing as their venue what many regard as the country’s most iconic religious landmark.

Continue reading.

Texas Fred Attacks Mitt Romney's Faith

Well, it's been a while, but old Texas "Wifebeater" Fred is making news again, joining in with the bigoted anti-Mormon attacks on Mitt Romney.

See: "Pastor says Romney is not a Christian:

I am NOT a Biblical scholar, I have serious issues with *organized* religion, and I hate to go off on a tangent about religion, anyones religion, but I have to agree with Jeffress on this one, at least to a certain degree. I don’t know that Mormonism is a *cult*, but I do not view it as a Christian religion either.

Really.

Well, you coulda fooled me, for example, at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints homepage, "Jesus Christ Is the Way":

If we believe in Jesus Christ, follow His teachings, and repent when we commit sins, His Atonement, or sacrifice, can wash us clean of our sins and make us worthy to return to God’s presence. Christ’s sacrifice and Resurrection also allow us to overcome physical death. Every one of us will be resurrected just like Christ was and live forever in perfected bodies after we leave this life.

Sounds pretty Christian-like to me. Of course, unlike Texas Fred, I don't hate "gooks," "negros," and "wetbacks" either.

Freakin' Texas Fred's the biggest loser and asshat this side of W. James "Costanza" Casper, and that's saying a lot!

Mitt Romney Acknowledges Attack on His Mormon Faith

At Los Angeles Times, "Mitt Romney subtly acknowledges attack on his Mormon faith."

RTWT at the link. I think Anderson Cooper handled the situation very well last night, in his interview with the Texas pastor. See: "Texas Evangelical Leader Robert Jeffress Attacks Mitt Romney's Mormon Church as 'Cult'."

And see Lonely Conservative, "Perry Supporter Bashes Romney’s Religion." And at Memeorandum.

Texas Evangelical Leader Robert Jeffress Attacks Mitt Romney's Mormon Church as 'Cult'

I saw this interview earlier on CNN.

And now here at New York Times, "Prominent Pastor Calls Romney’s Church a Cult." (At Memeorandum.)

WASHINGTON — A Texas pastor introduced Rick Perry at a major conference of Christian conservatives here on Friday as “a genuine follower of Jesus Christ” and then walked outside and attacked Mitt Romney’s religion, calling the Mormon Church a cult and stating that Mr. Romney “is not a Christian.”

The comments by the pastor, Robert Jeffress of Dallas, injected a potentially explosive issue into the presidential campaign: the belief held by many evangelicals that Mormons are not Christians.

And it raised immediate suspicions that the attack might have been a way for surrogates or supporters of Mr. Perry, the Texas governor, who has stumbled in recent weeks, to gain ground by raising religious concerns about Mr. Romney. Mr. Jeffress similarly attacked Mr. Romney and his faith during the 2008 campaign.

The Perry campaign sought to put some distance between Mr. Perry and Mr. Jeffress, stating that the governor “does not believe Mormonism is a cult” and that Mr. Jeffress was chosen to speak by the organizers of the event, the Values Voter Summit, which was put on by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and other evangelical Christian groups.

But in a statement, the Family Research Council president, Tony Perkins, said the Perry campaign had approved using Mr. Jeffress to introduce the governor. “Pastor Jeffress was suggested to us as a possible introductory speaker because he serves as pastor of one of the largest churches in Texas,” Mr. Perkins said. “We sent the request to the Perry campaign which then signed off on the request.”

Someone is making a big mistake. Attacks like this are radioactive and will end up hurting the Perry camp more so than Romney.

Roman Catholic Womenpriests

An interesting piece, "What I am is what I am — Womenpriests and The Age."

As thinkers from John Locke to Margaret Mead and today’s many “social constructionists” like to say, people are simply whatever they are conditioned to be. Bishop Fresen believes the church’s construct of gender being determinative as to ordination violates the deeper meaning of Scripture.

The Roman Catholic Church takes the opposite view, believing it is not possible for women to be priests because Christ himself chose no women to serve among the Apostles. It lacks the authority to contravene Christ’s example. Its precise position is that articulated by John Paul II in 1992: “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women.”

Los Angeles Times Readers Respond Viscerally to 'Evangelical Pastors Heed a Political Calling for 2012'

The original article ran last Sunday, on September 11.

And now from the letters to the editor, "Faith and politics in America..."

The evangelical pastors featured in The Times' story cannot be faulted for their political activism, which is protected under the 1st Amendment. The problem is their distortion of the Christian faith.

How can any sensitive Christian support the death penalty, the proliferation of firearms, unjust wars of choice, the dismantling of the social safety net, increased riches for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, the rejection of medical coverage for the poor, the continual domination of American life by corporations and the rest of the Bachmann-Perry agenda?

When a significant slice of the church loses its hold on everything Jesus stood for, the problem is religious heresy, not political activism.

Charles H. Bayer

Claremont

More letters at the link, including one with the worn cliche, "what would Jesus do"?

Silicon Valley Gives Conservative Christians a Boost

At Los Angeles Times:

Silicon Valley, the politically liberal technology hub, is an unlikely incubator of conservative Christian activism.

But a group of its venture capitalists is backing an ambitious project that seeks to affect the 2012 election by registering 5 million new conservative Christians to vote.

The nonprofit organization United in Purpose is using sophisticated data-mining techniques to compile a database of every unregistered born-again and evangelical Christian and conservative Catholic in the country.

Through partnerships with Christian organizers and antiabortion groups, United in Purpose hopes to recruit 100,000 "champions" to identify unregistered Christians and get them to the polls as part of its Champion the Vote project. Profiles drawn from its database, which numbers more than 120 million people, will enable organizers to target potential voters with emails and Web videos tailored to their interests.

Well, now's the time, if there ever was one. I'm still not holding my hopes out for any political breakthroughs in California, but this sounds nice.

Mayor Bloomberg and the Soul of American Politics

Here's yesterday's interview with Mayor Bloomberg, whose decision to exclude clergy from official events is stirring controversy:

And from Matthew Franck & William Simon, Jr., at National Review:

This Sunday is the tenth anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on our country that left nearly 3,000 dead, the great majority of them in the ashes and rubble of the World Trade Center in New York City. As Americans pause on September 11 in mournful remembrance of that dreadful day, many of them will mark the moment with a prayer for the dead, for the loved ones from whom they were taken, and for their country. And such praying would be a normal part of any such commemoration even if the anniversary were not on a Sunday. It’s just what countless Americans do.

But there won’t be any praying at the City of New York’s official anniversary ceremonies this Sunday. At least, there won’t be any voiced at the microphones by invited speakers. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to invite no clergy to be speakers at the event. It turns out that this omission of clergy participants has been a normal pattern of annual commemorations of 9/11. But on this tenth anniversary, the decision has finally been noticed, and it has become hugely controversial. According to the Wall Street Journal, the mayor said this week on his radio show, “It’s a civil ceremony. There are plenty of opportunities for people to have their religious ceremonies. . . . Some people don’t want to go to a religious ceremony with another religion. And the number of different religions in this city are [sic] really quite amazing.” He went on to deny the explanation that his own aides had been using to defend his decision — that it would just be “too difficult” to choose among so many faiths for the limited number of clergy who could be invited to speak. No, the mayor said, “It isn’t that you can’t pick and choose, you shouldn’t pick and choose. . . . If you want to have a service for your religion, you can have it in your church or in a field, or whatever.”

I understand, and I only fault Bloomberg to the extent that he personifies this country's banishment of religion from the public square. Folks no doubt would be able to grieve, commemorate and pray at an inter-denominational event. The logistics could have been worked out. Most of all, the day calls for spirituality. It's too bad we've come to this.

Continue reading, "Mayor Bloomberg and the Soul of American Politics."

9/11, Ten Years After: American Muslims Join the U.S. Mainstream?

Last year, when protests erupted in Temecula over a planned mosque there, I wrote:

Are folks in Temecula a bit intolerant? Or are we now going to prohibit the construction of mosques whenever there's local opposition?

I didn't follow up so much, but the mosque was approved by the city council in January and construction could begin in February 2012. And while I could be missing some details of the local protests, I think it's good. Conservatives must affirm freedom of religion. What gets lost in the debate over New York's Ground Zero Mosque is that opponents never denied the developer's right to build. It's way beyond that, in fact. Clearly it's been a sham development all along, with the purpose of bilking government and erecting a center for Islamist supremacy. There's never been concern among Imam Rauf and Daisy Khan for the families of the fallen. The lies have been too blatant and unending. That mosque shouldn't be built. It's a question of what is right, not who has the right.

That said, I guess I'm still ambivalent, despite my commitment to constitutional principles. Americans aren't getting the whole story. And those who speak out are branded as vicious racists. For my part I want to be firm but fair. On the one hand, I want to place my trust in people like M. Zuhdi Jasser, who I met at the Horowitz retreat earlier this year. (Recall his essential article from September 2010, "Questions for Imam Rauf From an American Muslim," and here.) On the other hand is someone like UCLA’s Hamzah Baig, the lead organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine. I interviewed him earlier this year. He might as well have been working for Hamas. So, I've personally been engaging and interacting with people from the both sides of the religion (the extreme side in the case of UCLA's quasi-terrorists). At home, in the Irvine community, the Muslims I bump into at my kids' schools or the playgrounds are mostly to themselves, even self-segregating rather than integrating. And honestly, on occasion I'll see Islamic women with the full burqa. I literally would not be able to talk to a woman in a burqa, because I read lips and I obviously need to see someone's face. So of course the burqa is physically intimidating, and it's a symbol of religious repression.



For all that, I appreciate the efforts of some Muslims to work in their communities to build ties and friendships. Yesterday's Los Angeles Times had another feature in its 9/11 series, and it's worth a look, "Thinking outside the 'Muslim bubble'":

Maria Khani was at her computer that September morning, working on an Arabic textbook. The small TV on the desk was turned to Al Jazeera. Suddenly, news came: A plane had struck the World Trade Center. Minutes later, she watched the screen as the second plane hit.



Khani sat frozen, questions racing through her mind: "Oh, my God, what do I do right now? Is everything that I built … gone?"



For five years, she had been planting the seeds of goodwill with Americans of other faiths. What if it was all for naught?



Unlike many Muslims who hunkered down after Sept. 11 and let national religious organizations defend their rights and make their case in the public square, Khani resolved not to retreat into the safety of silence, but to press on with her efforts over the years to become a part of her community, one neighbor at a time.



When Khani walked out of her house that day in a well-to-do Huntington Beach neighborhood, on a block of large houses and palm-shaded driveways, neighbors approached with no hint of rancor or suspicion. Their message: "We know who you are, we know about your faith, and we support you and we will take care of your kids."



This was not the experience of every Muslim American. Many recall the first months and years after Sept. 11 with dread: the detentions, the airport searches, the suspicious stares, racist epithets and worse. In response, some sought safety in a low profile.



The decade since the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon has seen a shift in the way many American Muslims negotiate their delicate position as a minority group associated, fairly or unfairly, with the perpetrators of the deadliest acts of terrorism in the nation's history.



As the years wore on and the hostility continued, even intensified, a number of American Muslims became disenchanted with the official campaigns for acceptance. They began to see that a voice — their voice — was missing from the conversation about Muslims' place in America.



They took matters into their own hands. Their efforts have been as idiosyncratic as the individuals involved. They have been as simple as inviting a non-Muslim neighbor to an iftar, the sunset meal that breaks the fast during the monthlong observance of Ramadan. They have been as life-changing as making a commitment to educate one's children in a religiously diverse public school instead of a Muslim private school.



Khani and others involved in such outreach attempts believe — and this is supported by opinion surveys — that Americans are less likely to harbor anti-Muslim feelings if they get to know even one Muslim.



When they do, they find that American Muslims, many of them immigrants or the children of immigrants, share with them many of the same values, including a rejection of extremist violence, appreciation of hard work and support for women taking an active role in society, according to polls.

RTWT.



I could quibble with a couple of the characterizations (President Bush went out of his way to remind Americans that we're not at war with Islam). But overall that sound about right to me, and I hope especially that we see more and more examples that Americans Muslims are indeed rejecting extremist violence. For example, at ABC News, "Cousin of Fort Hood Shooter Speaks Out Against Violent Extremism." And at the San Bernardino Sun, "Poll: American Muslims reject extremism." That's good news.



I'll have more on this in upcoming posts.

Ten Commandments Still the Only Solution to the World's Problems

This is nothing short of an astonishing essay, at National Review, "The Decalogue is as relevant today as it was 3,000 years ago." The 9th Commandment is particularly relevant, considering what's been going on around here this past few months:

9. Do not bear false witness.

Lying is the root of nearly all major evils. All totalitarian states are based on lies. Had the Nazis not lied about Jews, there would not have been a Holocaust. Only people who believed that all Jews, including babies, were vermin, could, for example, lock hundreds of Jews into a synagogue and burn them alive. That similar lies are told about Jews today by Arab governments and by the Iranian state should awaken people to the Nazi-like threat that Islamic anti-Semitism poses.

Painting Credit: "Moses with the Ten Commandments," Rembrandt (1659), via Wikimedia Commmons.

Michael Coren Interviews Robert Spencer

Via Blazing Cat Fur:

Pat Condell: 'Violence Is Not the Answer'

Via Blazing Cat Fur, "Pat Condell on Anders Behring Breivik."

New York Times Reader Kills Dozens in Norway

A classic piece from Ann Coulter, at FrontPage Magazine.

And speaking of New York Times, see Timothy Egan's desperation, "A Madman and His Manifesto."

RELATED: Anders Breivik is explained — indeed, he's all boxed up and ready to go — at Los Angeles Times, "Norway attacks: The Breivik-McVeigh connection," by Andrew Gumbel.

Bill O'Reilly Rejects Media's 'Christian Extremist' Description of Norway Killer

At The Blog Prof and Nice Deb, "Video: Someone In The MSM Finally Gets The Oslo Killer Story Right."

RELATED: At Eye Crazy, "Why are socialist moral relativists silent in the wake of the Norwegian terrorist attack?." Well, they're not silent, actually. They're cheering the attacks as a hammer against conservatives. See also Blazing Cat Fur, "Khaled Mouammar, Darling of the Canadian Left, Blames The JOOOS for Norway."

How The New York Times Spins the Norway Horror

From Ron Radosh, at Pajamas Media (via Glenn Reynolds):

Leave it to today’s New York Times to run a front- page story about the murders perpetrated by the crazed right-wing fanatic, Anders Behring Breivik, that is more accurately described as a not-so veiled editorial. Written by Scott Shane, the article begins by proclaiming that Breivik “was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them, as well as copying multiple passages from the tract of the Unabomber.”

The implication that he develops is that Breivik’s actions can be attributed to those who for years have been trying to educate the public in the West bout the threat posted to our values and way of life by the forces of radical Islam. In particular, Shane singles out- by virtue of Breivik having cited his writing 64 times in his manifesto- the writings of Robert Spencer at the website Jihad Watch, part of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, as well, he writes, of “other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.”

That sentence says it all: those who correctly point out that dangers of sectarian enclaves of unassimilated Muslim immigrants in Europe, of people who do not accept the laws and standards of the nations to which they have immigrated, and who consider themselves proponents of both jihad and sharia law, are not a danger. Instead, the danger comes from those who point out the uncomfortable truths that many dare not face.

Continue reading.

That's a phenomenal, and brutally honest, essay.

A Boost for the Islamists

From Israel Matzav, just read the whole thing.

PREVIOUSLY: "Progressives Attack Pamela Geller and Counter-Jihad"; "'The Left hasn't been this giddy since Rep. Giffords was shot'"; and "Just Awful: Progressives Ecstatic Over Anders Behring Breivik Alleged Ties to Right-Wing Extremism."

Norway Mourns Its Dead as Harsh Rhetoric Spreads

At Wall Street Journal:

OSLO — A Norwegian man confessed to killing nearly 100 people in a pair of attacks on Friday, calling his rampage "atrocious" but "necessary."

The confession by Anders Behring Breivik, made via his lawyer and preceded by a 1,500-page, xenophobic screed he published online before the massacre, has shocked this small Scandinavian country and unnerved governments across Europe, where far-right parties espousing anti-Muslim views, if not violence, have recently been on the rise ...

Norway, a relatively wealthy, sparsely populated country, has little recent history of political extremism, much less terrorism. That it was the site of such an attack, even if by an isolated gunman, has unleashed concern across Europe that the anti-immigrant underswell that has swept much of the Continent in recent years could metastasize suddenly and unexpectedly into violence.

As flags across the city hung at half-staff, hundreds of people flocked in the rain Sunday to Oslo Cathedral, where Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, King Harald of Norway and other leaders attended a memorial service. Outside, many onlookers openly wept and milled about for hours as they contributed to a growing carpet of flowers and candles.

Continue reading.

Norway Police Warned of Rising Far-Right Extremism

A report at Wall Street Journal.

Also, at Astute Bloggers, "NORWEGIAN SECURITY AGENCIES BLEW IT: "Breivik came to attention of intelligence services in March."

Added: At Daily Mail, "Anders Breivik 'was on Norwegian secret service watchlist' after buying chemical haul from Polish retailer."

Lawyer's Statement From Anders Behring Breivik

At Reuters:

In his first comment via a lawyer since his arrest, Anders Behring Breivik, 32, said he wanted to explain himself at a court hearing on Monday about extending his custody.

"He has said that he believed the actions were atrocious, but that in his head they were necessary," Geir Lippestad said.

The lawyer said Breivik had admitted to Friday's shootings at a Labour party youth camp and the bombing that killed seven people in Oslo's government district a few hours earlier.

However, "he feels that what he has done does not deserve punishment," Lippestad told NRK public television.

"What he has said is that he wants a change in society and in his understanding, in his head, there must be a revolution."

Added: From New York Times, "Police Say Oslo Suspect Admits ‘Facts’ in Massacre" (via Memeorandum).