Brian Tashman's blog

Televangelist Pat Robertson, who famously referred to non-Christians as “termites,” on the 700 Club today likened people who aren’t Christians to a “virus.” Following a report on the growing Muslim population in Europe, Robertson said “the antibody to these false religions have been vibrant Christianity,” lamenting that “our elites have turned against the founding principles that gave us our freedom, why? Because they don’t want to be Christian.”

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Robertson: It’s like a virus, if you have, we have, all of us have, antibodies in our system and if our system is healthy we can repel viruses, but once those antibodies breakdown then the viruses take over. The antibody to these false religions have been vibrant Christianity, it doesn’t exist any longer in Belgium, it doesn’t exist in Europe any longer.

Meeuwsen: It seems as though we are so busy enjoying the benefits and the blessings that God has given us that it’s like we’ve gone to sleep.

Robertson: We’ve not only gone to sleep, we’ve actively attacked it. We’ve attacked the founding principle of our civilization and no one can do that and survive, but that’s what happened. Our elites have turned against the founding principles that gave us our freedom. Why? Because they don’t want be Christian, they don’t want to acknowledge that they are sinners, they don’t want to come and say they need a Savior, that’s humbling, they want to be proud and in their pride they are going to lose everything.

After calling GLAAD a tool of the Devil, talk show host Kevin McCullough defended previous statements, listed by GLAAD’s Commentator Accountability Project, that gay couples “despise” marriage and are “seeking to destroy” it. McCullough said that they are indeed trying to “destroy” marriage, but took issue with GLAAD’s use of the term “gay,” because according to McCullough, “I don’t believe that you can be gay.” He said that being gay is a choice and warned that “homosexual behaviors can end up killing you” because “homosexual behaviors when acted upon in the teenage years greatly increases the likelihood if you’re male that you will try to commit suicide.” McCullough is correct in arguing that gay youth do have a higher risk of suicide, but seems to ignore the fact that anti-gay prejudice and bias in society plays a large role in why there is the higher suicide rate.

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They also said that ‘Kevin once said that gay couples both despise marriage and are seeking to destroy it.’ How is that not true? If homosexuals who want to engage in homosexual behavior therefore sexually couple just like themselves, if they are wanting to change the definition of marriage then they are wanting to destroy what current marriage is, that’s just a factual statement that I made. They don’t like the fact that men and women complete one another. They don’t like the fact that that union is so perfect that it sometimes brings children out of it, they don’t like the fact that that is the ability of what a natural marriage relationship brings. So I said they “despise,” they do, “they don’t like normal marriage and they’re seeking to destroy it,” yeah, “by redefining it,” that’s what they are seeking to do, they are seeking to undo what it’s always been. Yeah, I said that, I still believe it. It’s still true.

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I don’t believe that you can be gay. I believe that people engage in homosexual behavior, and I believe that homosexual behaviors can end up killing you, and I think that homosexual behaviors when acted upon in the teenage years greatly increases the likelihood if you’re male that you will try to commit suicide. But that’s what the data says, that’s not what the Kevin McCullough says, that’s what the studies show, that’s what the secular humanist studies indicate about homosexual behavior. I don’t—they are grossly misrepresenting me—they are saying that I said that being gay kills people, no, because I don’t believe that people are gay, I think they behave in homosexual ways but I don’t buy that ‘gay’ is a state of being, I think it’s a series of choices.

Right-wing talk show host Kevin McCullough, standing in for Bryan Fischer on Focal Point yesterday, warned that the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation is a pawn of the Devil. McCullough said he is being “targeted by the Enemy, and I mean the Evil One, I don’t mean human beings but I mean by His forces,” and said that he and the other commentators named in GLAAD’s Commentator Accountability Project, which is meant to shine light on the anti-LGBT statements of “frequent anti-gay interviewees” and includes McCullough and Fischer, have been “targeted by the most radical of activists that are seeking to basically blackball our voice from being allowed to be put into the public arena.” But McCullough later in the show warned that GLAAD isn’t just trying to get him “blackballed off media,” but that GLAAD and other activists “want me dead.”

I got to tell you, when you get targeted by the Enemy, and I mean the Evil One, I don’t mean human beings but I mean by His forces, it can be rather earthshaking and then it can be rather deliberatively motivating. And so I would ask friends as you have just heard, I just told you about this list that GLAAD has put out, Tim Wildmon, Bryan Fischer, both on the list, Kevin McCullough is on the list, Tony Perkins is on the list, David Barton, brother Don [Wildmon] is also listed, Gary Bauer, Tony Perkins, Jim Daly, the head of Focus on the Family, all on this list, about thirty people that have been targeted by the most radical of activists that are seeking to basically blackball our voice from being allowed to be put into the public arena.

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Someone asked me before I went on the show today, what do you think their end goal in developing this list is? Is it just to get you blackballed off media? I said, no, they want me dead. They are not going to be happy until my voice goes dark.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on Tuesday defended the Parents Action League, a Minnesota group that fiercely lobbied the Anoka-Hennepin school district against implementing anti-bullying policies they believe will make the kids targets of “homosexual propaganda” and result in them being “indoctrinated in homosexuality.” The Parents Action League, a division of the Minnesota Family Council, claims the school district has an “outstanding policy” regarding sexual orientation and gloats that they helped craft it. But the group has come under fire from legal organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center and even the Justice Department after a string of teen suicides, so naturally Perkins is standing by the school district’s anti-gay activists:

Perkins: Out of Minnesota where the school board had adopted a neutral policy on homosexuality, where teachers couldn’t be for it or against it and there were a few suicides that took place, which is really kind of tragically a rash, there’s been a rash of suicides, actually it’s been almost growing for a number of years in high schools across the country. Well there may be some cases where these young people are bullied, which is wrong, shouldn’t happen. The Southern Poverty Law Center, teaming up with local homosexual groups, immediately claimed that all these were related to homosexual students being bullied, as it turned out it was not but the damage had already been done. The Southern Poverty Law Center came in threatening a law suit, then brought the Justice Department in—the federal government, going into a local school district—and then in the process a parents organization kind of grew up, the Parents Action League, which was defending the neutral policy, they weren’t against homosexuality, they weren’t for it, but they didn’t want their kids taught something that countered what they were taught at home. Well the Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocate in the process for homosexual special rights and special status for homosexuals, labeled the opposing group a hate group for trying to marginalize and stigmatize them in that local debate. Then the Justice Department went forward with consent decree which is onerous, we’ll get into that on Thursday, but it just shows how the other side wants to shut down the debate so they can have their way and push their radical agenda through.

However, as Rolling Stone reported, at least four of the students who committed suicide were bullied for being gay or perceived to be gay:

There was another common thread: Four of the nine dead were either gay or perceived as such by other kids, and were reportedly bullied. The tragedies come at a national moment when bullying is on everyone's lips, and a devastating number of gay teens across the country are in the news for killing themselves. Suicide rates among gay and lesbian kids are frighteningly high, with attempt rates four times that of their straight counterparts; studies show that one-third of all gay youth have attempted suicide at some point (versus 13 percent of hetero kids), and that internalized homophobia contributes to suicide risk.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights have filed a lawsuit on behalf of five students, alleging the school district's policies on gays are not only discriminatory, but also foster an environment of unchecked anti-gay bullying. The Department of Justice has begun a civil rights investigation as well.

Stephanie Mencimer notes that along with the nine suicides, at least seven other students “have been hospitalized for attempting or threatening suicide.” She goes on to write:

There's no sure way of knowing why any of the kids took their own lives, but gay rights activists quickly honed in on one factor they saw as contributing to an unhealthy climate for at-risk kids. Anoka-Hennepin has a policy on the books known colloquially as "no homo promo," which dates in back to the mid-1990s. Back then, after several emotional school board meetings, the district essentially wiped gay people out of the school health curriculum. There could be no discussion of homosexuality, even with regard to HIV and AIDS, and the school board adopted a formal policy that stated school employees could not teach that homosexuality was a "normal, valid lifestyle."

Later the policy was changed to require school staff to remain neutral on issues of homosexuality if they should come up in class, a change that critics said fostered confusion among teachers and contributed to their inability to address bullying and harassment, or to even ask reasonable questions about some of the issues the kids were struggling with, like sexual orientation. Both policies were put into place at the behest of conservative religious activists who have been among Bachmann's biggest supporters in the district. They include the Minnesota Family Council (MFC), and its local affiliate, the Parents Action League, which has lobbied to put discredited "reparative therapy" materials in schools.

But Perkins tells a much different story.

First, he claims that the Southern Poverty Law Center “immediately claimed that all these were related to homosexual students being bullied,” adding, “as it turned out it was not.” However, the SPLC never claimed that all of the suicides were by “homosexual students,” but did argue that anti-gay bullying was “at least in part the result of a gag policy that prevented teachers from discussing issues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) people.” Perkins also claimed that the Parents Action League emerged as a result of the SPLC lawsuit, which isn’t true as PAL has been active in the school district for years prior to the SPLC’s involvement. He even claimed that PAL’s members “weren’t against homosexuality,” which is difficult to believe since the organization wants schools to teach reparative therapy, warned that gays and lesbians  have “targeted” students and called homosexuality “one of the most hazardous behaviors that kids could get into.”

But of course, no one should be surprised that Perkins twists the facts in order to promote his anti-gay views, and after misrepresenting the controversy he attacked the SPLC for advocating “special status for homosexuals” and pushing a “radical agenda.”

Right-wing activists have always had a difficult relationship with the truth, especially when it comes to Planned Parenthood. The lies they have told about the women’s health organization have been disgraceful and even comical. They continued today as Ted Cruz, the former Solicitor General of Texas and a candidate for US Senate, spoke to Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on Today’s Issues about his state’s move to defund Planned Parenthood, which treats nearly half the patients in the state’s Women’s Health Program.

Under Medicaid’s rules, states cannot prohibit qualified health care providers from participating in the program, and Texas officials knew that defunding Planned Parenthood would lead the federal government to withdraw its funding for the program, representing 90 percent of the program’s total funding.

Unfortunately, 130,000 women will now lose access to health care because of Texas’ decision, and will lead to millions of dollars in new state spending due to the drastic cut to preventative health care.

But Texas went ahead and defunded Planned Parenthood, to the satisfaction of the Religious Right, and now are shocked—shocked!—that Medicaid is enforcing its longstanding rules.

Perkins claimed that “Planned Parenthood as a result of losing this funding was closing twelve of its abortion clinics.”

This is false.

In fact, none of the affected clinics provided abortion services. Planned Parenthood clinics that do offer abortions receive neither federal nor state funds and are therefore not impacted by the state’s decision.

Perkins and Cruz also attempted to hold Parent Parenthood and the Obama administration responsible for the deleterious impact on women’s health care by twisting and ignoring the facts throughout the interview. Perkins called it “blackmail” and blamed the administration for “cutting off funds to some of the most needy people in the state of Texas.” Cruz said that the Obama administration wants to send taxpayer dollars to “the abortion industry,” which he called “typical of the assault on our liberties that is proceeding relentlessly everyday under the Obama administration.”

They seem to find no fault at all in Texas’ unilateral and deliberate decision to break Medicaid’s rules and defund an organization that provided nearly half of the health services to low-income women under the state’s program.

Perkins: Let me get your first impressions, the Governor who you know well and the legislature whom you’ve worked with, they said, ‘We’re not going to be part of funding Planned Parenthood.’ They took the steps, that’s rightfully theirs, and so now I can’t explain it as anything other than blackmail from the Obama administration cutting off funds to some of the most needy people in the state of Texas.

Cruz: Tony you’re exactly right. The Obama administration has been the most radical administration this country has ever seen, he is the most radical president this country has ever seen. On this issue, his concern is quite simply political, it is ensuring that the money flow continues to Planned Parenthood and to the abortion industry, and he is willing to hold 130,000 low income Texas women hostage in order to make sure that Planned Parenthood makes their money. It’s cynical, it’s partisan and it’s wrong.

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Perkins: I wonder if the timing here, it seems very suspect to me, but after Texas decided to stop this funding of Planned Parenthood, I think it was a week before last the story came out of Texas that Planned Parenthood as a result of losing this funding was closing about twelve of their abortion clinics in Texas. That was a story that was beginning to get traction around the country, giving other legislatures encouragement to take steps like Texas. Is this an effort to cut that off at the pass and try to say ‘hey, you better slow down or else we’re going to come after funding in other areas’?

Cruz: I think it was exactly that. The disturbing thing Tony is you and I and every American are involuntarily the largest funders of Planned Parenthood in this country because the federal government and the Obama administration is fighting tooth and nail to send millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood. You and I are both strongly pro-life, have been fighting to defend the right to life for many years, the idea that we are facing an administration that is so radical that they will do anything they can to defend and expand the taxpayer money to pay for Planned Parenthood and to fund the abortion industry, that is really dismaying and it is typical of the assault on our liberties that is proceeding relentlessly everyday under the Obama administration.

Joel Belz, the founder of WORLD Magazine, responded to an inquiry about “homophobic” content in his magazine by defending the anti-gay material and claiming that the “homosexual agenda” is “an extreme in-your-face challenge to God’s order.” Belz defended WORLD, which named ex-gay activist Alan Chambers the “2011 Daniel of the Year” and derided supporters of marriage equality as “forces of anarchy” who are “undefining the family,” for standing up to “the armies of homosexual advocacy,” which he claims now “have nothing left to conquer but the kindergarten class down the street” as the “battles” in the literature, entertainment, media, education and mainline churches “are long since over.” “If heterosexual immorality is like driving 85 mph in a 35 mph zone,” Belz writes, “then homosexual immorality is like going 85 mph the wrong way on a one-way street.”

Eric, from Ohio, is very upset with WORLD in general and me in particular. "I've been a reader for 12 years or more," he says, "and now I get the distinct impression that you are becoming more, not less, homophobic with every issue. Does gay-bashing really give you that much satisfaction?"

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Yet saying all that, we dare not lose sight of two other facts about the contemporary homosexual agenda. The first is that it is an extreme in-your-face challenge to God's order. We learn that both from the Bible and from common sense. As we've noted here before, if heterosexual immorality is like driving 85 mph in a 35 mph zone, then homosexual immorality is like going 85 mph the wrong way on a one-way street. Never mind what prompts you to drive the wrong way; just doing it is dangerous. We're no more judgmental saying that than we are when we encourage folks to avoid any behavior that is demonstrably destructive—spiritually, emotionally, or physically.

The other important aspect of the current homosexual agenda is its zeal to establish itself as normal. It's bad enough when wrongdoers work hard to keep their wrongdoing secret. When instead they flaunt what they do, and pull out all the stops to make it public, then society has problems of a different order.

For decades now, we've witnessed an all-out effort to portray homosexual behavior as typical and mainstream. It's pointless to worry about battles being waged in literature, the library systems, the entertainment industries, the information media, fashion, higher education, and most of the liberal churches—for the battles in those venues are long since over. When the armies of homosexual advocacy have nothing left to conquer but the kindergarten class down the street, you know you're almost certainly too late on the scene.

Homophobic gay-bashers? Not really, Eric. But realistic about what's happening all around us? Indeed, yes. And I hope we say that these days with a tear—and never anything you might mistake for a leer.

Ryan Dobson, the son of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, is joining his fellow conservative commentators in attacking Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. Yesterday on Family Talk’s Grounded, he railed against President Obama for calling and thanking Fluke after she testified in favor of a mandatory insurance coverage for contraceptives. Fluke testified that many of her fellow Georgetown students must spend $3,000 over the course of three years on contraception because the school refuses to cover it in their insurance plans.

Dobson charged that Obama “belittled himself by calling her” since she “sleeps around enough to where she’s struggling financially because she can’t afford contraception.”

Dobson must have missed the Associated Press story confirming that without insurance coverage, contraceptives can indeed cost $1,000 a year. He also likely never read Fluke’s testimony, in which she pointed out that contraceptives are medically necessary to treat ovarian cysts, endometriosis, hormonal disorders and early menopause, along with preventing unwanted pregnancies.

And, along with many of Fluke’s right-wing attackers, Dobson seems to have missed the fact that the amount of contraception a woman needs is unrelated to the amount that she “sleeps around.”

Dobson: President Obama calls [Sandra Fluke] and says ‘I called you because of my own daughters, your parents must be proud.’ Really? Seriously? So Obama, when your daughter is a third year student at a college who sleeps around enough to where she’s struggling financially because she can’t afford contraception, that’s going to make you proud of your daughter? I cannot imagine a father in this country or anywhere that wakes up in the morning and is like, ‘I’m so glad my daughter sleeps around; it just makes me so proud that my daughter is sleeping around and spending money on contraception.’

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I just think it’s such a bad precedent for the president, for the President, the President of the United States, belittled himself by calling her.

Religious Right commentators from Calvin Beisner to David Barton and Bryan Fischer like to think of themselves as experts on the topic of global climate change despite their complete lack of scientific credentials. On the 700 Club today, televangelist Pat Robertson joined the debate, arguing that human-induced climate change is a myth and “hasn’t been scientifically proven”:

But like Newt Gingrich, who costarred in an ad with Nancy Pelosi for Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, Robertson shared a couch with Al Sharpton for ACP’s “We Can Solve It” campaign to raise awareness about climate change in 2008:

Before the Tennessee primary, Rick Santorum visited the Bellevue Baptist Church outside of Memphis where he prayed alongside Pastor Steve Gaines. Gaines said that “God doesn’t come to take sides, God comes to take over and I pray that He will takeover in America.” He asked God to forgive America for “the sins of racism, the sins of abortion and the sins of immorality”:

Gaines has a sordid history, and the website Ethics Daily, a project of the Baptist Center for Ethics, reported back in 2006 that Gaines failed to report to the police a minister in his church, Paul Williams, who molested his own:

An assistant prosecutor said Bellevue Baptist Church Pastor Steve Gaines may have committed a crime if he knew the "moral failure" a church staff member confessed to him six months ago involved child molestation.

All 50 states have laws requiring mandatory reporting of suspected child sexual abuse. Tennessee requires any person, including ministers, with reasonable suspicion that abuse of a child has occurred to report it immediately.

Gaines has admitted that Paul Williams, a minister on staff at the Memphis, Tenn., mega-church for 34 years, told him in confidence about inappropriate behavior that occurred 17 years ago.

While Gaines did not disclose details of the confession, a Web site critical of his leadership alleged Williams molested his own son. Church leaders have suspended Williams and launched their own investigation, due to last a month.

"Everyone has a duty to report," Kevin Rardin, chief prosecutor of child sexual abuse cases in the district attorney's office in Shelby County, Tenn., told Memphis station WMC-TV. "There are not exceptions for clergy or anyone else."

In fact, Gaines kept Williams’s admission a secret for six months:

"It is that every person is required to make a report to an agency like Department of Children's Services if they have reason to believe that someone may, a child may have been molested or abused," said Nancy Williams, with the Memphis Child Advocacy Center.

According to Bellevue Pastor Steve Gaines' own words, he didn't just have reason to believe it, he had a confession from one of his ministers, who admitted to molesting a child.

A report by church leaders found that Gaines allowed the minister to remain on staff even after his admission:

The report states that Williams "engaged in egregious, perverse, sexual activity with his adolescent son over a period of 12 to 18 months."

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In May 2006, Williams informed Jamie Fish, the church's minister of biblical guidance, of his past actions. The report said Fish erred by not coming forward with the information, particularly since Williams' job duties included interviewing adult lay ministry volunteers who had indicated they had been sexually abused.

The following month Williams and his wife met to discuss the issue with Dr. Steve Gaines, Bellevue's senior pastor. Williams indicated that he confessed and repented to his family and there had been no further sexual abuse. The meeting was kept confidential and Williams remained on staff.

But in early December, Williams' son met with Gaines "for an explanation, in light of scriptural qualifications for ministers, as to why Paul should be allowed to continue as minister on the church staff."

While Gaines failed to report a case of child molestation and allowed an admitted child predator to remain on the church’s staff, he did ban a softball team from the church’s athletic league because the coach was openly gay. In fact, Gaines consistently rails against gays and lesbians, warning that gay rights and gays in the media jeopardize America’s security and economy:

"As important as these issues are, ... I believe they pale compared to two other issues that I believe will determine the future of America," Gaines warned. "I personally believe with all of my heart that the two issues that will determine what God will do not only with America but to America are abortion and homosexuality. ... America's economy and America's safety are more tied up with what's going on in those courts in Massachusetts than what's going on in Wall Street or over in Iraq." …

"We love [homosexuals] because we know -- as Jesus said from the cross -- 'they know not what they do.' They're in bondage, but aren't you glad today Jesus Christ can set people free from all sorts of bondage, even homosexuality?"

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Southern Baptists should oppose "pro-homosexual television programming," such as "Will and Grace," "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and MTV's homosexual channel, Logo, Gaines urged.

"We must help curb the epidemic spread of lesbianism by telling our daughters and our young girls that the passionate kisses shared by Madonna, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera at MTV's Video Music Awards last August were an abomination to a holy God," Gaines said.

In another sermon, he warned that since “homosexuals and lesbians cannot reproduce biologically so they prey on the children of normal people, seeking to entice them to be trapped in their perverted lifestyle”:

On the home-front, radical homosexuals and lesbians seek to take over our nation. You cannot watch television without being subjected to Gay propaganda. They seek to brain wash our citizens so they can make same-sex marriage the law of the land. Homosexuals and lesbians cannot reproduce biologically so they prey on the children of normal people, seeking to entice them to be trapped in their perverted lifestyle. They want to silence Baptist preachers and others from denouncing their sinful lifestyles by making it an illegal “hate crime” to point out what the Bible says about their wicked practices. Regardless of what anyone says about the goodness of being “Gay,” the Bible still calls it a “degrading, unnatural, indecent, and depraved” (Romans 1:26-28). Homosexual practice always has been, is, and always will be “an abomination” in the sight of Holy God (Leviticus 18:22). By God’s grace, homosexuals can be saved and set free from their sinful lifestyles because the blood of Jesus can cleanse anyone from any sin. But they must first repent of the sin of homosexuality and denounce their ungodly homosexual behavior.

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The Old Testament prophet, Joel, preached to God’s people in Judah just before the Babylonian armies came and destroyed Jerusalem and took God’s people into exile. He cried out for them to repent so that God could spare the land from the coming invasion. His words of warning are very pertinent for us today. I personally believe that if America does not repent, she is headed for national disaster.

The negative publicity around Gaines, however, did not prevent Rick Santorum from actively seeking his support. In fact, Santorum has made frequent appearances with extremists in the Religious Right in his bid to defeat Mitt Romney.

It has been almost-comical to see how the Christian Broadcasting Network’s Erick Stakelbeck went from working as a sports reporter to a “terrorism analyst” heralded by Religious Right and anti-Muslim groups, which never seem to question his complete lack of credentials and expertise. But Stakelbeck knows how to please a crowd with his vehement diatribes against Muslims and progressives, warning that they are both have a “shared hatred for this country.”

Stakelbeck’s “expert analysis” even includes biblical prophecy, as he recently told Marcus and Joni Lamb on Celebration that he knows the Syrian civil war will end with the destruction of Damascus because the Bible tells him so in Isaiah 17:1. “I believe right now we are seeing the seeds laid for the eventual destruction of Damascus,” Stakelbeck says. “The Bible says it’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen.”

Stakelbeck went on to claim that Islamic terrorists had infiltrated cities all over the United States, including Dearborn, Michigan, which he referred to as a “radical Islamic enclave” and “Dearbornistan.” This may come as a surprise to Dearborn’s Catholic mayor, John O’Reilly, Jr., who called claims that Dearborn is beheld to Sharia law “absurd” and notes that only a minority of Dearborn’s population are Muslims, who have been in Dearborn for ninety years. Earlier this year, a 63 year old man was caught traveling with explosives with the intention of blowing up a mosque in Dearborn.

He later said that while he was in Israel God spoke to him and told him to defend Israel, saying, “I know why I’m here on this earth.”

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