Evangelist Franklin Graham, son of famous evangelist Billy Graham, has created sort of a furor recently by being asked to speak at the Pentagon on the upcoming National Prayer Day. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has asked the Pentagon to cancel his appearance because of bigoted statements Graham (pictured) has made about muslims. After the 9/11 attack, he chose to blame all muslims by calling their faith "a very evil and wicked religion."
That kind of all-encompassing statement can to very hurtful to soldiers who are muslim, and there are currently over 3400 muslim soldiers serving in the United States Military. How can their leaders at the Pentagon turn their backs on these brave soldiers by inviting someone like Graham to speak? No religious figure would be invited to speak at the Pentagon that had made such bigoted statements about the christian or jewish religions, and it is just as wrong to invite someone who is bigoted against muslims.
Graham had the opportunity to apologize or at least soften his words yesterday. He appeared on Fox and Friends yesterday, and was asked about his views on islam. Instead of backing off his anti-muslim stance, he just made himself look like a hypocrite in addition to being a bigot. Here is what he said:
"First of all, I want Muslims to know that I love them …. They don’t have to die in a car bomb they don’t have to die in some kind of a holy war to be accepted by God … But when you look at Islam, I love the people of Islam but the religion I do not agree with the religion at all and if you look at what the religion does to women and the women alone it is horrid. And so yes I speak out for women, I speak out for people who live under Islam, who are enslaved under Islam, and I want them to know they can be free by Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone."
Those are amazingly hypocritical words for a fundamentalist preacher! Has he been wearing blinders when preaching in the fundamentalist christian churches? Can he not see that these churches are just as guilty of discriminating against women as the muslims? These fundamentalist churches do not allow women to be ministers, or in fact, have any position of authority within the church. In addition, they teach that women must be subservient to their husbands -- no equal partnerships in evangelical christian marriages.
He is right that the muslims treat their women as second-class citizens. But how can he not see that his own fundamentalist religion does exactly the same thing. The muslims are wrong whenever they do it, and so are the christians when they do it. You simply cannot condemn another religion for doing the same thing your own religion does.
It was bad enough when Graham offended muslims with his bigotry. Now he is also offending women with his misogyny. If the Pentagon cares about its muslim and female soldiers, it must rescind their invitation for Graham to speak.
