That time when right wingers loved the gays
by digby
So President Obama visited a mosque today and delivered a beautiful speech about pluralism and tolerance and what it means to be American.
The right, predictably, went crazy. But their main objection seemed somewhat odd. See if you can discern why I might think that:
President Obama met behind closed doors on Wednesday with 13 Muslim leaders at a Baltimore mosque with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. And, according to a White House pool report, one of the participants is the Islamic Society of Baltimore’s anti-gay resident scholar, Imam Yaseen Shaikh.
Obama’s short trip to the Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) marks his first visit to a U.S. mosque since taking office. After the meeting Obama spoke to congregants at the mosque, which he said “like so many in this country, is an All-American story.”
Introduced by ISB’s president, Muhammad Jameel, who in 2014 accused Israel of engaging in “genocide” against Palestine, praised the mosque for its inter-faith outreach efforts. He also praised the mosque’s school, “where teachers open young minds.”
But ISB’s schools, the Al-Rahma School and Qur’an Academy, are led by Imam Shaikh, a British citizen who formerly served as imam in Plano, Tex., who has said that Islam is adamantly opposed to homosexuality.
A 2013 YouTube video uncovered by The Daily Caller also shows Shaikh lamenting that gay rights activists have “hijacked” the political system to further their agenda. (RELATED: The US Mosque Obama Has Chosen For His First Visit Has Deep Extremist Ties)
“This whole subject of homosexuality in the public sphere…is no longer a religious issue, unfortunately, as much as we want to use the religious card and try to defeat this, now it’s become a politicized issue,” Shaikh said in the hour-long sermon.
“Politicians are highly influenced by people who back them, and we find that these politicians who are calling for gay rights and marriage and supporting gay rights are lobbied and campaigned by gay activists, by gay groups. And they are throwing money at it left and right to gain some acceptance in society, to be considered normal people, to be treated normally.”
Shaikh also warned that children must be taught that homosexuality is “not okay.”
“We have to counter the efforts that are taking place elsewhere,” Shaikh says in the video, adding that “if our children are taught that [homosexuality is] okay, we have to teach them it’s not okay.”
That’s from Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller which appears to be very upset about this anti-gay cleric.
This, however, is not a problem:
EARLIER this month, in Des Moines, the prominent home-schooling advocate and pastor Kevin Swanson again called for the punishment of homosexuality by death. To be clear, he added that the time for eliminating America’s gay population was “not yet” at hand. We must wait for the nation to embrace the one true religion, he suggested, and gay people must be allowed to repent and convert.
Mr. Swanson proposed this at the National Religious Liberties Conference, an event he organized. Featured speakers included three Republican contenders for the presidency: the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
A cursory search of google will turn up dozens and dozens of instances of right wing politicians embracing anti-gay pastors and priests. But that’s totally different.
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