PERHAPS ALL THE LEFTIES WHO HAVE SHOWN AN UNACCOUNTABLE AFFECTION FOR FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAM will think twice now:
UNITED NATIONS — Conservative U.S. Christian organizations have joined forces with Islamic governments to halt the expansion of sexual and political protections and rights for gays, women and children at United Nations conferences. . . .
But it has been largely galvanized by conservative Christians who have set aside their doctrinal differences, cemented ties with the Vatican and cultivated fresh links with a powerful bloc of more than 50 moderate and hard-line Islamic governments, including Sudan, Libya, Iraq and Iran.
“We look at them as allies, not necessarily as friends,” said Austin Ruse, founder and president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a New York-based organization that promotes conservative values at U.N. social conferences. “We have realized that without countries like Sudan, abortion would have been recognized as a universal human right in a U.N. document.”
Yeah. “We’re not really the same, we’re just, um, fellow travelers who happen to be going down the same road together for a while.”
Jeez. Perhaps the “Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute” should focus its attentions a bit closer to home.
UPDATE: Reader Will Duquette writes:
Regarding the story about Conservative Christian groups banding together with the likes of Sudan, I’m curious if any groups other than the “Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute” were mentioned. I’d be surprised if any of the groups one ordinarily thinks about when one hears the phrase “Conservative Christian” were involved, as it’s widely known in Evangelical circles that Sudanese Christians are being severely and violently persecuted by the Muslim majority. I’ve spoken with missionaries who’ve visited Sudan in the last year, so I know that the persecutions aren’t being overstated.
Yes, there are other groups, including a couple that I believe are largely evangelical in nature. Apparently it’s not just the State Department that gets taken in.
UPDATE: A couple of readers think this is unfair to evangelicals, and claim that the groups involved (see story) aren’t really evangelical. Er, okay. But I thought Concerned Women for America was pretty well tied in with evangelicals. If I’m wrong, well, then I’m wrong: it’s certainly not impossible that the Post would give the wrong impression, accidentally or deliberately. But nobody’s said that yet. At any rate, evangelical or not, it’s certainly the “religious right.”
On the other hand, some people dispute my assertion that there are lefties who like fundamentalist Islam. Well, there certainly seem to be a lot of people — Chomsky, Kingsolver, Edward Said, etc., who miss no opportunity to criticize the United States’ war against terror, while saying very little about the practices of our enemies. The Taliban website (yeah, they’ve still got one, and it’s actually not bad) seems pretty pleased with the “not in our name” crowd of lefties. And there’s the example of Gloria Steinem, who opposed the Taliban until the United States went to war with them, and then changed her mind. Pro-Islamic Fundamentalist, or just anti-American? It gets kind of confusing after a while.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Oh, and this is amusing: the author of this story in The Guardian thinks it’s a pro-Taliban website that’s using the headline “Gangsters, murderers and stooges used to endorse Bush’s vision of ‘democracy'” — but when you follow the link you find it’s actually Robert Fisk’s headline. Robert Fisk: Indistinguishable from Islamist propaganda — even by The Guardian!