"The First Amendment was written by the Founders to protect the free exercise of Christianity. They were making no effort to give special protections to Islam... Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment."
-- American Family Association "Director of Issues Analysis" and conservative talk radio host Bryan Fischer
Look, on any given day you could troll the fringes of either end of the political spectrum and find a half-dozen or so lunatic proclamations that don't deserve to be taken seriously. What makes this particular nut-job stand out, though, is something I've mentioned before quite a few times, the thing that separates the left from the right and renders the "both sides do it" meme inauthentic: He's embraced by some of the biggest mainstream names within the conservative movement. Fischer may be a ranting, xenophobic self-parody, but his radio show is a regular command performance stop on the campaign trail for guys like Mike Huckabee and the seemingly sane Tim Pawlenty. And that's what makes the kind of dogshit he spews so dangerous.
(via Talking Points Memo)
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