But is Franklin Graham right?

By Bryan Fischer

Rev. Franklin Graham was bounced yesterday from the opportunity to pray at the Pentagon on the National Day of Prayer (May 6) because he once called Islam "an evil and wicked" religion, and because he wants Muslims to know that Jesus Christ died for their sins. He refused to back down yesterday, even in the face of this blatant anti-Christian discrimination, saying that Muslims are in fact "enslaved" by their religion.

The military dumped Rev. Graham because, according to spokesman Col. Tom Collins, "We're an all-inclusive military." Well, you'll have to excuse Rev. Graham for not feeling particularly included at this point. Apparently the inclusiveness of the military does not extend to those who speak the truth about Islam.

It apparently counts for nothing that Graham's charitable organization, Samaritan's Purse, has delivered compassionate care in the name of Jesus to millions of Muslim children around the world for decades.

So Rev. Graham has called Islam an "evil and wicked" religion. What the Pentagon didn't bother to ask is the most fundamental question of them all: Is he right?

Here are some key data points in resolving that question.

• Its founder, whom all his followers are taught to scrupulously imitate, married a girl at age six and began having sex with her at age nine. Taking child brides is routine all across the Muslim world. Just this week a 12-year-old Saudi Arabian girl was in court seeking a divorce from her 80-year-old husband. So, what do you think about pedophilia? "Evil and wicked" or not?
  
  
• Its founder made his fortune plundering caravans in the Arabian peninsula. He was a land pirate. So, what about piracy, pillage, and plunder? "Evil and wicked" or not?
  
  
• He taught his followers that it is permissible for a man literally to beat his wife into submission. Even today imams deliver entire televised sermons on exactly how husbands may go about administering this beatdown. So, what about wife-beating? "Evil and wicked" or not? it's a terrible thing when it happens at all. It's entirely another thing to be taught that it's good.
  
  
• Women in general are second class citizens who are forbidden in many Muslim countries from getting an education or even showing their faces in public. So, what about severe and unrelenting sexism? "Evil and wicked" or not?
  
  
• Honor killings are widely practiced in the Islamic world.According to the U.N., at least 5000 females are brutally murdered every year because they have brought dishonor to their families by, in many cases, being the victims of rape. In America, one Muslim in New York cut off the head of his wife (he was hosting a television program at the time designed to improve the image of Islam), a Muslim in Arizona ran down his daughter with the family station wagon, and another in Houston shot his two teenage daughters to death in the back of a taxi cab. In my hometown of Boise, Idaho a Muslim man burned down his home with his Westernized wife and daughters inside. So what about killing victims of rape and shooting, burning or cutting the heads off Westernized females? "Evil and wicked" or not?
  
  
• Muhammad taught his followers to "slay the idolaters wherever you find them" and decapitate them. There are 109 verses in the Koran commanding Muslims to kill the infidel Jews and Christians. His followers, as demonstrated by the events of 9/11 and Fort Hood, and the gruesome deaths of Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg, are still faithful to his teaching. So, what about the mass murder and decapitation of innocent people? "Evil and wicked" or not?
  
  
• There is no freedom of religion in Islam. Christians are given three choices and three choices only, where Islam has the power to impose its will: convert, submit or die. Conversion from Islam to Christianity is a capital offense in most Muslim countries. So what about the complete and total absence of religious liberty? "Evil and wicked" or not?
  
  
• Islam is determined to subdue the entire world at the point of a sword. Christian Europe was forced to turn back the armies of Islam in 732 at Tours and again in 1683 at Vienna to preserve its freedom. So, what about militaristic totalitarianism? "Evil and wicked" or not? We might want to ask the Europeans of the 1930s for an answer to that question.
  
  
• Muslims are specifically forbidden by their founder from assimilating into Western cultures. They are prohibited from taking friends from the Jews and Christians around them. So much for the American ideal, "Out of many, one." Of course, many followers of Islam do in fact make friends of Westerners. This, according to Muhammad, makes them bad Muslims.
  
  

The U.S. military, the ultimate protector of our freedoms, has allowed itself to be bullied into meek capitulation by activist Muslims, including the head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Nihad Awad. There's nothing wrong with CAIR other than its involvement in a conspiracy to raise money for the terrorist organization Hamas. Nope, no worries here.

Awad had the cheek to say that allowing Graham to pray at the Pentagon would have sent "entirely the wrong message" at a time when American troops are stationed in Muslim nations.

Ah, so now our apparently spineless military brass is allowing Muslim nations to decide who gets to pray in America. I'm feeling safer. How about you?

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and a former Marine, was disinvited from even speaking at a prayer luncheon at Andrews Air Force base because he opposes the president's plan to allow open homosexuals to serve in the military.

Bottom line: you want to know who's now running the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy and the Marines and calling the shots where it counts? Fundamentalist Muslims and homosexual activists.

In fact, I'll predict that there will be a day of prayer at the Pentagon on May 6, and it will feature a Muslim imam, a homosexual clergyman, and no conservative Christians of any kind.

This is not your father's military. It's not even your father's country anymore.

"Evil and wicked?" You be the judge. For me, I'm with Franklin Graham on this one.

© Bryan Fischer