Last week, anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy hosted a who’s who of far-right activists including Rick Joyner, Jerry Boykin, Diana West, Andy McCarthy, Clare Lopez and others at an all-day “Defeat Jihad Summit” meant to be a conservative alternative to President Obama’s summit on violent extremism today.
Joining them were a number of prominent Republican politicians, including Sen. Ted Cruz and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who submitted a speech by video. Also speaking at the summit were Republican Reps. Steve King, Mike Pompeo and Scott Perry, who used the opportunity to accuse Obama of siding with “the enemy of freedom” in the Mideast.
A major theme in the speeches at the summit was that “political correctness” has forced American leaders, including Republicans, into failing to criticize Islam as a whole, rather than just violent extremists who claim to represent Islam.
One speaker, Stephen Coughlin, who was fired as a Pentagon contractor under President Bush, urged Republicans to resist kneeling “at the altar of racism, sexism and homophobia” because “political correctness” is just a way to “mainstream Islamic slander law in America.”
Another speaker, conservative pundit Diana West, also cautioned Republicans against “political correctness,” saying that the fact that politicians criticize Islamic radicalism rather than Islam in general shows that “we are operating under Islamic slander law that prohibits the criticism of Islam.”
She drew several parallels to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s efforts to root out communists in the U.S. government, which she said has been unfairly maligned.
