A decade ago, when Operation Rescue announced that it had changed its name to Operation Save America, leader Flip Benham made sure to distinguish the new entity from other anti-choice efforts. Rather than focus on the single issue of abortion, he announced, OSA would also work to promote school prayer and the teaching of creationism. What’s more, OSA would oppose assisted suicide, sex education, and efforts to promote LGBTQ rights.

Now, OSA’s scope has broadened to include a new bogey, Islam, and the group has aligned itself with an international team of fear-mongers to fight the religion’s  spread. The impetus for this involvement was a late-September outdoor prayer service in Washington DC which brought hundreds of Muslims to the nation’s capital. Called by the Dar-ul-Islam mosque in Elizabeth, New Jersey, organizers told the press that they wanted “to show that not all Muslims hate America.” They further stated that they’d been inspired by President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim community.

While these hardly seem like fighting words, OSA saw the event differently. “We can be killed by them. We can kill them. We can convert them to Christ. Which will you choose?” screamed the OSA website’s banner headline in the days leading up to the worship service. Should OSA’s message still not be clear to readers, the webpage continued: “Islam has been at war with Christianity for 14 centuries. There is no dialogue, no common ground. No reaching across the aisle in this battle. We are not called to build bridges to Islam. We are called to storm the Gates of Hell—to defeat the false God of Islam with the unsheathed word of God.”

OSA’s blatant racism got a boost from a 15-minute film called FITNA, created by Dutch politician Geert Wilders in 2008, and subsequently posted on OSA’s website. A lightening rod in his own right, Wilders was named 2009’s Man of the Year by the ultra-rightwing FrontPage Magazine but was barred from entering any part of the United Kingdom in mid-February. The reason?  According to Britain’s Parliament, Wilder’s work incites hatred and discrimination. 

Among Wilder’s pronouncements: “Islam is not a religion, it’s a political ideology. It’s heart lies in the Qur’an, a book that calls for submission, hatred, and war and orders all Muslims to kill non-Muslims…The purest joy in Islam is to kill and be killed…Islam should be compared with other totalitarian philosophies like Communism and Nazism.” Laughably, Wilders concludes by stating that he “has no hatred toward any person whatsoever.”

For its part, OSA goes one further, revving up a holy war between “the true God of the Bible versus the false God, Allah.”  While most folks believe the Crusades ended 700 years ago, this memo has apparently not reached OSA’s in-box. “Any attempt to declare God and Allah are one and the same—they are not!” their website bellows. “Islam will not be tolerated by God and it certainly must not be tolerated by Christians. Any attempt at dialogue or finding common ground with this enemy is a ruse by the devil himself.”  

And that’s not the worst of it. OSA liberally sprinkles phrases about Islam’s alleged intent—conquering the Judeo-Christian world and imposing Shar’ia Law—in its missives, and weaves footage of carnage from September 11 and the heinous London and Madrid terrorist attacks to stomach-churning, if disingenuous, effect.

It seems so over the top that it’s tempting to ignore these OSA histrionics. After all does anyone really believe that a religious war is imminent or even possible? I, for one, would surely support this approach if the group’s efforts reflected the isolated ramblings of a small circle of cranks. But they do not.

Although OSA is the only anti-abortion group to have jumped on the anti-Muslim bandwagon thus far, a broad network of organizations—Atlas Shrugs and Jihad Watch are among the most prominent—aided by FOX News, Newsmax, FrontPage, National Review, and columnists Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, are working overtime to present Islam in the worst possible light.  Jihad Watch, for example,  last month posted a lurid article called Romeo Jihad about young girls being kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam by male Internet predators. The message—they’re coming for “our” women—is reminiscent of Klan attempts to stir up race hatred during much of the twentieth century.

And don’t forget Newt Gingrich. His Newsmax ramblings about American “efforts to drive the Cross off public lands” are intended to bolster the notion of Christian victimhood and inspire fear and loathing in his readers. “You actually have schools today that will have a class on Islam but refuse to have a class on Christianity,” he rails.

Ibrahim Hooper, National Communications Director of the DC-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, says that he is not surprised that an antiabortion group like OSA has joined the anti-Muslim fray. ”People who promote bigotry and extremism often don’t limit themselves to one issue,” he says.

At the same time, OSA’s foray into anti-Muslim racism has caused unprecedented rifts within the anti-choice community.  Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition has made the schism clear. “The church should not run from Muslims in America but begin reaching out with God’s love…The heart of Christ is to build bridges to all people regardless of what their faith tradition or beliefs might be.

For the first time ever, we’re in complete agreement.

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THE COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS HAS LAUNCHED SEVERAL CAMPAIGNS AGAINST HATE.  FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO WWW.CAIR.COM.