Evangelist Rev. Franklin Graham on Wednesday said that while he supports Americans’ right to free speech, the attendees at the Muhammad cartoon contest near Dallas “were wrong” to mock Muslims.
“As a Christian, I don’t like it when people mock my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, and what this event in Garland, Texas, was doing was mocking the Muslims. And I disagree with Islam, I don’t believe in Islam, but I’m not going to mock them and make fun of them,” Graham said on “Fox and Friends.”
Graham said that the cartoon contest, organized by Pam Geller’s anti-Islam group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, was offensive.
“I’m discouraged that people would do this. We live in a society now where there’s no civility, there’s no respect, we don’t honor people who have differences. We only attack each other. And so I agree that the folks in Garland, Texas, were wrong,” he said. “They had the right to speak. I have free speech, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go around and cuss people just because I have the freedom to do that.”
He later added that even though he did not approve of the event, responding with violence was “wrong.”
“The Muslims have no right to go around shooting people because somebody mocks them,” he said.
In February, Graham warned that the White House has been “infiltrated by Muslims.”
“One of the problems we have in the West is that our governments, especially in Washington, has been infiltrated by Muslims who are advising the White House, who I think are part of the problem,” he said.
Watch the “Fox and Friends” clip via Fox News:
Pam has even lost the Shiite Baptist Ayatollahs? Bet she didn’t predict that.
Finally, Franklin, with his devil-may-care comb-over and forward, gets one right…
Even the nuts don’t want to have anything to do with her.
Who will Pammy claim to be like next? Joan of Arc? Amelia Earhardt?
Geez. Franklin is an Islamophobe from WAY back:
1. CNN’s Campbell Brown: December 2003: “True Islam cannot be practiced in this country. You can’t beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they’ve committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries.”
2. In the August 30, 2010 issue of the Time magazine, “Does America Hate Islam?” Frank Graham reportedly said that Islam “is a religion of hatred. It’s a religion of war.” Building the cultural center near Ground Zero, he says, means Muslims "will claim now that the World Trade Center property … is Islamic land."
3. On August 19, 2010, when asked by CNN correspondent John King if he had doubts that President Barack Obama is a Christian, Graham stated, “I think the president’s problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name.” Franklin continues to say, "Now it’s obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That’s what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn’t. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has
said."
4. In a March 2011 interview with the conservative internet publication Newsmax, Graham claimed that Obama had “allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to become part of the US government and influence administration decisions,” asserting that:
“The Muslim Brotherhood is very strong and active in our country. It’s infiltrated every level of our government. Right now we have many of these people that are advising the US military and State Department on how to respond
in the Middle East, and it’s like asking a fox, like a farmer asking a fox, “How do I protect my henhouse from foxes?” We’ve brought in Muslims to tell us how to make policy toward Muslim countries. And many of these people
we’ve brought in, I’m afraid, are under the Muslim Brotherhood.”
If THIS guy claims you were wrong in taunting Muslims in Texas…hooo boy.
Geller wasn’t “mocking” them. She was insulting them and denigrating them. She chose a belief held dear by Muslims, that images of the Prophet are insulting, and defied it. There was no reason to do that other than to be low brow and vulgar. Geller claims to have been “protecting Free Speech” but speech does not need her protection, she can’t offer that protection and if that were her motive she could have chosen to address Islam in meaningful criticism.
Graham is just pitching in. He’s an opportunist and scion.