FAITH UNDER FIRE

WorldNetDaily Bob Unruh reported Criminalizing Christians now losing steam at U.N But religious rights advocates warn plan still a danger to Western world A leading advocate for religious rights says an Islam-sponsored religious anti-"defamation" resolution pushed in the United Nations appears to be losing support but still remains a rattlesnake to Christianity around the world.

"U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based organization that monitors the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, acknowledged what we have stated all along that the resolution is 'aimed at the Western world to intimidate anyone from criticizing radical Islam,'" said Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law & Justice.As WND reported, the organization raised alarms about the plan supported by the 57 member -nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

The group repeatedly has lobbied since 1999 for the plan, based on the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, "which states that all rights are subject to Shariah law, and makes Shariah law the only source of reference for human rights."

The ACLJ has launched a petition effort to raise awareness of the campaign, to be delivered to the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights.

According to the ACLJ's European division, the European Center for Law & Justice, "The 'defamation of religion' resolutions establish as the primary focus and concern the protection of ideas and religions generally, rather than protecting the rights of individuals to practice their religion, which is the chief purpose of international religious freedom law.

"Furthermore, 'defamation of religion' replaces the existing objective criterion of limitations on speech where there is an intent to incite hatred or violence against religious believers with a subjective criterion that considers whether the religion or its believers feel offended by the speech," the group continued.

Campaign warns Americans about looming Shariah codeDetroit billboard says religious law imposed by Islam threatens rights Shariah, or Islamic law, may be spreading around the world, but it isn't going to be established in the United States without opposition, vow members of the United American Committee. Officials with the non-profit have erected a 48-foot-long billboard just outside of Detroit, home to one of the largest groups of Muslims in the U.S.
"SHARIA LAW THREATENS AMERICA," warns the sign.

The UAC says it's "dedicated to awakening the nation to the threats of radical Islam" and works to "educate Americans on the nature of Islamic extremism." 1

The group's mission is to battle against "the ideological aspects of the war on terror to counter elements of radical Islam in America."

"Shariah law is a legal system recognized in many Islamic countries such as the former Taliban regime of Afghanistan, and currently Saudi Arabia, and is a legal system which dictates beheadings, stonings, and other punishments for what are listed as crimes under Shariah such as homosexuality and adultery, and according to critics views women as inferior granting them little rights," the organization stated.

The Heritage Foundation’s Steve Groves reported that In seeking to apply the broad and all-inclu­sive definition of "sacrilegious" given by the New York courts, the censor is set adrift upon a boundless sea amid a myriad of con­flicting currents of religious views, with no charts but those provided by the most vocal and powerful orthodoxies. …

[F]rom the standpoint of freedom of speech and the press, it is enough to point out that the state has no legitimate interest in protect­ing any or all religions from views distasteful to them which is sufficient to justify prior restraints upon the expression of those views. It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, whether they appear in publications, speeches, or motion pictures.[16] (Emphasis added.)


The "defamation of religions" concept, if instituted as U.S. law, would clearly run afoul of the Court's holding in the Joseph Burstyn, Inc. case. Any attempt by the federal government (or any state government) to censor speech or expressive conduct under such circumstances would place the government in the untenable position of suppressing "real or imagined attacks" on Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or any other religious faith currently practiced in the U.S.
http://www.heritage.org/

Ted R. Bromund and Morgan Roach reported that, in uncovering the Global Network, Great Britain and the United States also need to continue and enhance their close cooperation on homeland security to prevent British Islamists from infiltrating the United States. And the Lisbon Treaty and other European Union initiatives will undermine the U.S. and Britain’s ability to control its own borders.

Finally, both need to recognize that further European integration will imperil Britain's ability to control its own borders, reducing security in both Britain and the United States. It is therefore not in the interest of either country to support the deepening of the European Union (EU).U.N. scheme to make Christians criminals Sharia-following Islamic nations demanding anti-'defamation' law

WorldNetDaily Bob Unruh reported that dozens of nations dominated by Islam are pressing the United Nations to adopt an anti-"defamation" plan that would make Christians criminals under international law, according to a United States organization that has launched a campaign to defend freedom of religion worldwide.

"Around the world, Christians are being increasingly targeted, and even persecuted, for their religious beliefs. Now, one of the largest organizations in the United Nations is pushing to make a bad situation even worse by promoting anti-Christian bigotry," the American Center for Law and Justice said. http://www.aclj.org/

The discrimination is "wrapped in the guise of a U.N. resolution called 'Combating Defamation of Religions,'" the announcement said. "We must put an immediate end to this most recent, dangerous attack on faith that attempts to criminalize Christianity." The "anti-defamation" plan has been submitted to the U.N. repeatedly since about 1999, starting out as a plan to ban "defamation" of Islam and later changed to refer to "religions," officials said. It is being pushed by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference nations, which has adopted the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, "which states that all rights are subject to sharia law, and makes sharia law the only source of reference for human rights."

WorldNetDaily Chelsea Schilling reported that A new Islamic mosque will open its doors just steps from Ground Zero where Muslim terrorists murdered 2,751 people in the name of Allah on Sept. 11, 2001 – and its leading Imam, who conducts sensitivity training sessions for the FBI, has reportedly blamed Christians for starting mass attacks on civilians.

The five-story building at Park Place, just two blocks north of the former World Trade Center site, was the site of a Burlington Coat Factory. But a plane's landing-gear assembly crashed through the roof on the day 19 Muslim terrorists hijacked the airliners and flew them into the Twin Towers in 2001.

Now Muslim worshippers currently occupy the building, and they plan to turn it into a major Islamic cultural center. "The men and women stand up, raise their hands on either side of their head, murmur 'Allahu akhbar,' bow and kneel again," reports Spiegel Online.

"Only in New York City is this possible," Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, or ASMA, told the magazine. Khan is the wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of ASMA.

They have leased the new prayer space as an overflow building for another mosque, Masjid al-Farah, at 245 West Broadway in TriBeCa, where Rauf is the spiritual leader.

The building – vacant since that fateful day when time stood still as millions of Americans grieved the loss of loved ones, friends, family members, co-workers and strangers – was purchased in July by real-estate company Soho Properties, a business run by Muslims. Rauf was an investor in that transaction.

Just down the street, the Museum of Jewish Heritage honors victims of the Holocaust, and St. Peter's Church, New York's oldest Catholic house of worship, is located around the corner. Rauf has announced his plans to turn the building into a complete Islamic cultural center, with a mosque, a museum, "merchandising options," and room for seminars to reconcile religions, "to counteract the backlash against Muslims in general, " Speigel reports. The project may cost as much as $150 million.

Rauf told the New York Times purchasing the building "where a piece of the wreckage fell sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11."

"It was almost obvious that something like this had to arise from the ashes of 9/11," Khan told Spiegel. "In some way, this has the hand of the divine written over it. It's almost as if God wanted to be involved."

The city's Department of Buildings records show the building has been the focus of complaints for illegal construction and blocked exits in the last year. Recent entries from Sept. 28 and 29, 2009, indicate inspectors have been unable to access the building. One complaint states, "Inspector unable to gain access – 1st attempt – No access to 5 sty building. Front locked. No responsible party present." The second, just a day later, states, "Inspector unable to gain access – 2nd attempt – no access to building. No activity or responsible party. Building remains inaccessible at Park Place."

Agency spokeswoman Carly Sullivan told the Times the complaints were listed as "resolved" under city procedures since the inspectors were unable to gain access.
WorldNetDaily Bob Unruh

A resolution pending in the United Nations in one form or another since 1999 is being pushed again by the Islamic nations that originally proposed the plan they called "Defamation of Islam," which would ban criticism of the beliefs of Muhammad worldwide.

The proposal, sought by the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, now has be renamed "Defamation of Religions," but officials with Open Doors, an international Christian ministry operating in many of those Islamic states, is warning about its potential impact.

WND has reported that a recent incarnation of the resolution sought to make the ban on criticism of Islam mandatory worldwide, even though support for the proposal at the time was plummeting.

Now, lobbying for the resolution has resumed among decision-makers at the U.N., according to Lindsay Vessey, the advocacy director for Open Doors who traveled this week to New York in opposition to the plan.

If fully implemented, the resolution would ban "criticism" of religions worldwide.
But Vessey told WND the real agenda was revealed by the original title of the resolution, "Defamation of Islam," which would "criminalize people who criticize a religion."

U.N. human rights provisions always have focused on individuals, but the concept of protecting a religion would give authoritarian governments virtually unrestrained power to attack individuals whose message they don't like, she said.

"It would legitimize national blasphemy laws in countries that are actually going to persecute religious minorities, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan," she told WND.
Open Doors President Carl Moeller recently published a commentary describing what could happen under the proposal.

"The United Nations is once again on the verge of introducing a resolution that goes against everything the world body supposedly stands for. A successful resolution would actually undermine the religious liberty and personal safety of Christians and members of other faiths," he wrote.

In fact, he said the resolution would "silence words or actions that are deemed to be against a particular religion, and that religion is Islam. While the stated goal seems relatively innocuous – blocking defamation of people's deeply held religious beliefs – in practice the statement is used to silence those whose only crime is to believe in another faith, or no faith at all."

He said the OIC as the driving force behind the plan and noted, "The OIC's goal is anything but peaceful."

He cited a comment from Leonard Leo of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, who described the resolution as an attempt to create a "global blasphemy law."

"From the right to worship freely to the ability to tell others about Jesus Christ, the Defamation of Religions Resolution (previously called the 'Defamation of Islam' resolution) threatens to justify local laws that already restrict the freedom of Christians [and other religious minorities]," Moeller said.

When such laws are adopted locally, he said, they are used to bring criminal charges against individuals for "defaming, denigrating, insulting, offending, disparaging and blaspheming Islam, often resulting in gross human rights violations."

Cyndi’s View:

One Nation under God will soon be a phrase never used again if the Islamic agenda is put into play. My heart weeps at the very thought. There is a global war being waged against our constitution. Our freedoms threaten others who wish to force their will upon us.


The first Amendment says,” Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the right of the people peaceably too assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

All this simply means we have the right to have freedom of religion, freedom of press, and freedom of speech or expression. How long will these freedoms be ours to express and live by?

Imagine if Islamic anti-defamation is made law there will be no freedom that will not be trampled on especially Christianity. If you even criticize radical Islam you will be prosecuted. This will seriously effect a Christian’s witness. And there are Christians being targeted for their belief around the world as I write this. So when the UN adopts this anti-defamation plan it will further promote anti-Christian bigotry.

You see, this plan will make Christians criminals. It stands to be the most dangerous act against our faith and that is besides our freedom of speech. Sharia law will over ride every human right, which simply means you will have no human rights if you are a Christian anywhere in the world.

Abraham Lincoln said, “Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit, which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors. Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage, and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.” Speech at Edwardsville, IL, 1858.

Ulysses S. Grant said, "Let us labor for the security of free thought, free speech, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and equal rights and privileges for all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion;... leave the matter of religious teaching to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contribution. Keep church and state forever separate." Speech to G. A. R. Veterans, at Des Moines, IA 1875.

George Washington said, "Every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshiping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.” Letter, United Baptist Chamber of Virginia May 1789

Forget religious freedom as we know it. Sharia law will take over every part of your life if it is allowed to take root. If something is not done to stop it we will see it take hold. It will have the power to effect every part of your life. Such as politics, how you spend and make your money, how you do business, what you teach your children, what you are allowed to eat, sex, and what you should think. As I have shown you, even our Founding Fathers thought it a danger to Government control your right to worship and speak your mind.

The sharia law will cause imprisonment or death to those who don’t comply. There is no religious tolerance for any one outside Islam. We as Christians will have our hands tied and our mouths muzzled so that we can’t share our faith in Jesus with a Muslim in general. This will even affect our freedom to worship.

Never take for granted the freedoms we hold dear here in America. Use them while you can.