Anyone who says President Obama doesn’t believe in the freedom of religion is wrong. It is evident by his actions that he strongly believes in that freedom — at least for Muslims. And Wednesday, he stood in a mosque just outside of Washington that has record of radicalism to prove it. With a compassion he rarely demonstrates for the Christian faith, the president stunned plenty by spending the day before the National Prayer Breakfast legitimizing an ideology at war with the world.

An ideology, his own Treasury Department found, the Islamic Society of Baltimore has shared. “As a Muslim American,” one local told Fox News, “I’m just insulted. This is disgraceful that this is … the mosque he’s chosen to visit. [It’s] very concerning.” The Society’s former imam, who was flagged by U.S. officials for his ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, was also a member of the Muslim Brotherhood — hardly the kind of peace-loving Islamists the President speaks of. According to several sources, the White House knew about the mosque’s connections and ignored them anyway. “They prepared memos for the president’s aides that specifically laid out the sordid history and nexus to terrorism of the Islamic Society of Baltimore,” terrorism expert Steve Emerson pointed out.

Surely, it left most Americans wondering: Is the president’s team just inept — or are they, as some suggest, sending a subtle message? Unfortunately for Christians, Jews and other targets of radical Muslims, the president’s speech was not so subtle. If anything, it pulled back the curtain on a very frightening agenda of the Left: the elevation of Islam at the expense of every other faith group in America. “Recently,” the president said, “we’ve heard inexcusable political rhetoric against Muslim Americans that has no place in our country… We are one American family. And when any part of our family starts to feel separate or second-class or targeted, it tears at the very fabric of our nation.” When any religious group is targeted, he went on, “we all have a responsibility to speak up. And we have to reject a politics that seeks to manipulate prejudice or bias, and targets people because of religion.”

It was a surreal moment for a country that’s watched the president’s seven-year war on the First Amendment. He condemned religious hostility while the proof of his administration’s own hostility grows stronger every day! He speaks of tolerance and acceptance while showing anything but to Christians and Jews. “Muslims are already a privileged group,” Arnold Steinberg wrote in an excellent piece for American Spectator. “Just as the Obama administration interprets freedom of religion selectively as it wants to force a Christian baker who finds a gay wedding immoral … the same Obama lawyers favor Muslims. The government seems to believe that a Muslim truck driver must be ‘accommodated’ if he doesn’t want to transport alcohol, or a Muslim airline steward must be ‘accommodated’ if he doesn’t want to serve alcohol.”

And the president doesn’t merely defend Islam in speeches, he prioritizes them in policy. Immigration, national security, education and religious liberty debates have all seemed to widen the gates for Muslims at the expense of the largest and most influential faith group in the country. What’s more, he’s doing all of this despite the hypocritical message it sends to his base.

“Obama and his groupies charge the Republicans with a ‘War on Women’ and an assault on ‘gay rights.’ But the Muslim nations continue aggression against women and homosexuals, ranging from sexual mutilation, assault, and rape, to stoning and death. Contrary to the mainstream media, these practices are not confined to ISIS, but prevail in varying degree throughout the Muslim world… What the secular progressives and agnostic-atheist liberals don’t get is this: after the Islamists deal with the Jews, and then deal with the Christians, they will go after the ultimate non-believers, the secular-progressives, especially women and homosexuals,” Steinberg points out.

And amazingly, that violence is as much a threat to Muslims as it is to non-Muslims. “Right now, Muslims are killing each other on a grand scale, in the name of Islam. Are there any current wars of Jews killing Jews, or Christians killing Christians?”

President Obama has spent the better portion of seven years lecturing Americans on the need to celebrate Islam, while innocent Christians are dying to have Obama defend them with the same ferocity. What a tragic irony that the president devoted 5,145 words to the plight of Muslims [Wednesday] — yet he can’t spare one to describe the crisis faced by thousands of believers in the Middle East: genocide.

Originally published here.

Atheists Push the Envelope at Kans. Post Office

If the Freedom from Religion Foundation didn’t like one “God Bless America” sign, then 1,500 must have really made its blood boil! That’s how many the small town of Pittsburg, Kansas, posted on lawns, car windows and in businesses after the anti-Christian bullies forced the local post office to tear down its 9/11 banner. After standing for more than 14 years, the building sign was a casualty of FFRF’s small-town war on the First Amendment.

And while Pittsburg may have lost the banner, it didn’t lose the battle. A local businessman was so irate that he worked through the night printing “God Bless America” signs. By the next morning, he’d handed out more than a thousand in 45 minutes. Local twitter feeds started posting photos of the cars lined up to get a copy, as people honked and rolled down their windows to shout their thanks. “It’s amazing,” said Jason Marietta who was part of the Jake’s Fireworks team handing out signs.

The story started catching fire in Kansas — so much so that U.S. Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins (R-Kans.) and U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kans.) both cheered the town’s gumption. “It’s outrageous that some would aim to divide a community over a banner that has been proudly displayed since September 11th. I commend the Pittsburg community for rejecting this decision, and I stand with them. The constitution guarantees … freedom of religion, not freedom from religion… Expressions of patriotism, faith, and community should be welcome in our society, and I have contacted USPS officials to express my concerns about their decision.” Meanwhile, I’m sure that FFRF will be glad to know that the sign now has a permanent home: on the district office of a U.S. senator.

Originally published here.

Brief, Case: Congress, FRC Weighs in on Texas Law

While the Left talks about protecting women, Texas actually did! A few years ago, thanks to the pro-life leadership in the state legislature, the Lone Star state passed a commonsense measure that puts women’s safety ahead of the clinics’ bottom lines. There’s just one problem — the courts stopped it from taking effect. Texas’s plans are on hold, as judges stick their nose in the state’s consensus to bring the local abortion industry in line with other medical centers in terms of licenses and facilities upgrades.

Now, H.B. 2 has a March date with the Supreme Court, where its goal to spare more moms from Kermit Gosnell-type horrors will hinge on the decision of nine unelected justices. And while other courts have agreed that the law “reduces the risk that abortion patients will be subjected to woefully inadequate treatment,” abortion activists like Planned Parenthood would rather spend money fighting the standards than upgrading their equipment.

That’s ridiculous, 174 members of Congress argue in a new amicus brief. Together, the 34 senators and 140 representatives side with Texas leaders in their right to “preserve their latitude, as well as the latitude of legislators at the state and local levels, to weigh competing scientific and medical evidence and make judgments such as the one at issue here.” In their opinion, “the health and safety regulations at issue here fall comfortably within the broad bounds of legislative discretion that this court’s cases recognize.” The overwhelming support of Congress should make an important statement in advance of oral arguments.

Together with the American Center for Law and Justice, Texas Conservative Coalition and the Houston Coalition for Life in Support of Respondents, FRC echoed their concerns in a brief of our own. In it, we debunk Left’s argument that abortion is safer than childbirth, highlighting several instances where women’s lives were lost or jeopardized by the lax regulation of abortion clinics. To read the brief, click here.

Originally published here.