After dozens of members of the Republican National Committee went on a trip to Israel sponsored by a notorious hate group that has repeatedly claimed that that Jewish Americans have no First Amendment rights and argued that Jewish immigrants should be forced to convert to Christianity, Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal are now taking part in a visit to Israel organized by an organization with similar views.
The Family Research Council announced in an email to members today it is organizing an Israel tour with Santorum and Jindal, two likely Republican presidential candidates, along with End Times author Joel Rosenberg.
Jindal and Santorum’s decision to travel to Israel with FRC may raise eyebrows, given the group’s history of making dismissive comments about American Jews and expressing hope that Jews in Israel will convert to Christianity, a central theme of certain End Times narratives.
FRC Executive Vice President Jerry Boykin said last year that Jews who convert to Christianity are “fulfilled Jews,” claiming that missionary efforts should focus on Israeli Jews, who can learn from their Arab Christian neighbors:
Boykin has rebuked anyone who dares criticize his attempts to convert Jews to Christianity:
Boykin also slammed Jewish Americans for largely backing Democrats, claiming that they don’t realize that Adolf Hitler was actually a leftist: “If you look at Hitler, one of the most disgusting things I hear is for people to call Hitler the extreme Right. The absolute opposite was true. It was the National Socialist Party. He was an extraordinarily off the scale leftist. But many Jews in America, for example, can't identify with the Republican Party because they're called the party of the Right, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.”
Like Boykin, FRC President Tony Perkins, for his part, once attacked the “Jewish lobby” for its ties to Democratic elected officials, lamenting that Democrats “enjoy the money coming from the Jewish community.”
The FRC is also well-known for its extreme anti-gay views. For example, Perkins believes that gay rights supporters are planning a holocaust of Christians and are quite literally pawns of the Devil. As we’ve previously reported, Perkins has “defended Uganda’s ‘kill the gays’ bill and connected homosexuality to a whole host of evils, including death, sexual assault, depression, suicide, government population control, and child abuse. He has even compared homosexuality to shootings, kidnappings and alcoholism.”
Such remarks aren’t that surprising, as the FRC is unabashed in its support for the criminalization of homosexuality and once had a spokesman say he wanted to “export” gay people from the U.S. since “we believe that homosexuality is destructive to society.”
