Jerry Boykin appeared on American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer’s radio show Focal Point today to discuss his decision to withdraw from a prayer breakfast at West Point when his radical anti-Muslim views and conspiracy theories became a lightning rod for criticism. While Boykin said the decision to withdraw was his and his alone, he spent most of the time on Fischer’s show suggesting that the Obama administration is out to “destroy” the “Judeo-Christian base upon which we were founded” and has “denigrated both Christianity and Judaism.” Last year on Fischer’s show, Boykin called for the banning of mosques in America and said “Islam is a totalitarian way of life.”
Fischer: Your concern is about encroaching sharia law, grave concern that I have, a lot of Americans have, and it looks to me like sharia law now is being enshrined in the United States military kind of by default if guys like you, Tony Perkins, Franklin Graham can be disinvited from prayer events because of the truth that you have told about Islam, looks to me like sharia law is gaining a preferred place in the United States military. Your reaction?
Boykin: First of all remember one of the tenets of our form of government is civilian control of the military, so a lot of what you see coming out of the military in terms of policies and procedures are because of the influence of the administration. I don’t think there is any question that the administration has shown favor to Islam at the same time that they have denigrated both Christianity and Judaism, for example, having an Eid dinner in the White House in the same week that they would not have an event for the National Day of Prayer. So I think that the military reflects the leadership of the country.... It’s a bad situation now that we are seeing so much effort to not only destroy the identity of the roots of the nation which is the Judeo-Christian base upon which were founded, but also the growing influence of Islam.
While Fischer was correct in saying that Franklin Graham was disinvited from the Pentagon after calling Islam “a very evil and wicked religion,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins had his invitation rescinded to an event at the Andrews Air Force base not because of his anti-Muslim statements but as a result of his criticism of President Obama’s effort to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
Todd Starnes of Fox News talked to both Boykin and Perkins about the controversy, and Perkins accused the administration of trying “to sweep Christianity off the face of military bases.” The Fox News article also failed to mention any of Boykin’s anti-Muslim diatribes since leaving the military:
Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, was outraged by the decision.
“This has gone too far,” Perkins told Fox News & Commentary. “This is a troubling trend that we are seeing under this administration.”
Under the Obama Administration both Perkins and Franklin Graham were disinvited from speaking at military prayer services.
“When you talk to military leaders on the base, they don’t like this,” Perkins said. “There seems to be pressure coming from within the administration to sweep Christianity off the face of military bases.”
Boykin said he doesn’t believe the Obama administration has stood with the traditional values of the nation and he said the incident at West Point should serve as a wakeup call to Christians.
“The message is that people of faith and conservative Americans are losing our voice to a very well-organized and very well-funded group of very passionate people – those being the atheists and the Muslims,” Boykin said. “They want to change the nature of our culture – and they are succeeding.”
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Boykin accused the Obama administration of not standing with people of faith – “certainly not people of the Christian faith or Jewish faith.”
“If there has been support in this administration for faith it has been more skewed towards the Islamic faith than anything else,” Boykin said.
