A group called the Illinois Family Institute is hosting an event tonight aimed at fostering hatred of Muslims, claiming a spread of Islam is “rapidly altering the way we live.”
Pastor Dr. Erwin Lutzer of Moody Church — author of The Cross in the Shadow of the Crescent: An Informed Response to Islam’s War with Christianity — will be spreading the gospel of hate at Medinah Baptist Church in Medinah, Illinois.
Yes, Medinah. The same name of the second holy city for Muslims in Saudi Arabia.
I’m guessing that tonight’s attendees will point to the Chicago suburb’s name as yet more evidence of creeping shariah, stealth jihad and the Islamization of the heartland and, thus, America. Maybe they’d say the same about the town’s Lake Kadijah (the name of the Prophet Muhammad’s first wife).
The last thing we need is anti-Muslim and anti-gay bigotry and outright hate masquerading around as sound information and Christian truth.
In fact, the town and lake names were adopted in the 1920s when it was apparently cool to be mesmerized by all things from the “exotic” Middle East. But I wouldn’t be surprised if tonight’s event attendees don’t even make the connection.
Watch: Larry Wilmore lampoons Pamela Geller’s fear of the ‘Islamization’ of everything
In any case, Illinois Family Institute is no stranger to the haters’ game. The group has just broadened its scope.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) already recognizes IFI as a hate group because of its hard-line anti-LGBT propaganda. IFI has collaborated with the notorious Family Research Institute and stood silent as Laurie Higgens, IFI’s school advocacy director, compared homosexuality to Nazism.
According to SPLC, Higgens said: “There was something profoundly good for society about the prior stigmatization of homosexual practice… . [W]hen homosexuals were ‘in the closet,’ (along with fornicators, polyamorists, cross-dressers, and ‘transexuals’), they weren’t acquiring and raising children.”
Tonight’s event: Islam in America, A Christian Response
Tonight’s speaker, Pastor Lutzer, seems like a good fit for the group. He sounds a lot like ACT! for America president Brigitte Gabriel, who likes to say that that “every practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim.” They both want us to believe that it’s not violence that is the problem, but just Muslims being Muslim:
“Remember that the real threat to the United States is not so much terrorism, but Islamism, which intends to challenge our constitutional liberties and take advantage of political correctness to silence discussion and debate about Islam and to undermine our national security…”
In these times of heightened panic and amplified fear, the last thing we need is anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT bigotry and outright hate masquerading around as sound information and Christian truth.