Jerry Boykin has been going on a media tour to all the usual Religious Right outlets to play the victim after deciding to withdraw from an event at West Point following uproar over his virulently anti-Muslim rhetoric. Boykin told the Christian Broadcasting Network that his “views on Islam have been grossly misrepresented”:
Boykin has issued frequent warnings about the threat of radical Islam and Sharia law, a position the left-wing political action committee views as "Islamophobic."
"My views on Islam have been grossly misrepresented," Boykin told CBN News. "I do fear Sharia. I do believe we need to stop the encroachment of Sharia."
"But I have also said consistently that there are many Muslims in America that reject Sharia as well, and those are the people we need to be reaching out to," he added.
How exactly have his views been “grossly misrepresented,” by quoting him verbatim? Like when he said that Islam “should not be protected under the First Amendment”:
We need to recognize that Islam itself is not just a religion - it is a totalitarian way of life. It's a legal system, sharia law; it's a financial system; it's a moral code; it's a political system; it's a military system. It should not be protected under the First Amendment, particularly given that those following the dictates of the Quran are under an obligation to destroy our Constitution and replace it with sharia law.
Or when he called for America to ban mosques?
No mosques in America. Islam is a totalitarian way of life; it’s not just a religion. … But Islam, we need to think Sharia, it is not just a religion it is a totalitarian way of life. A mosque is an embassy for Islam and they recognize only a global caliphate, not the sanctity or sovereignty of the United States.
Or his claim that “there is no creativity in Islam” and that Christians should be “praying over mosques” as part of “going on the offensive” against Islam?
Surely it doesn’t take any distortions of Boykin’s own words to show that Boykin is an anti-Muslim extremist.
But that hasn’t stopped other Religious Right figures from buying his cries of victimhood hook, line and sinker.
Kenneth Blackwell yesterday said Boykin had to drop out of the West Point event purely as a “because of his Christian beliefs.” Blackwell said that only the “far left” was angered by his speech in uniform framing the military as involved in a holy war against Islam, when actually, his remarks drew a rebuke from President George W. Bush as he was making exactly the same claim as groups like Al-Qaeda. He even tried to bring President Obama in the mix, saying Boykin’s own decision to withdraw is proof of “the Obama administration’s ongoing hostility to people of faith”:
Jerry Boykin has done it all. He’s been in battle as part of America’s most elite fighting force, then rose to command those troops as a general, and also served in the CIA and Pentagon on the strategic planning and management side of this equation.
He is also a Christian evangelist who speaks at churches nationwide. As a private citizen retired from the Army, General Boykin was invited to speak at a prayer breakfast at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He seems like an ideal choice, as someone who has served as the tip of the spear at the highest ranks, who is also a man of profoundly deep faith.
But the Far Left exploded. Boykin has cast America’s war against radical Islamic terrorists as fighting Satan. So his religious language has made strange bedfellows of various Islamic groups joining with atheists to call on West Point to disinvite this American hero who risked and achieved so much for this country. Evidently it’s not politically correct to suggest that blowing up children is the devil’s work.
After heavy pressure, General Boykin chose to withdraw. This soldier fears no foe, but the situation evolved in a direction where his message of faith and courage would be overshadowed by controversy to the possible detriment of the West Point cadets.
This sad episode is yet another example of the Obama administration’s ongoing hostility to people of faith, especially Christians. President Obama’s pick to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a lesbian activist who says that homosexual rights should always trump religious liberty. This is the same EEOC that argued it had the power to order a church to reinstate as a minister a person the church had fired for violating church teaching, a position the Supreme Court unanimously rejected. And the administration has enacted regulations under Obamacare forcing Evangelical and Catholic universities and hospitals to provide contraceptives against the religious beliefs of those church-affiliated institutions.
