President Obama spoke to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) saying, “That is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. Now, I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.”
No Mr. President, it wasn’t the video – it was a terror attack perpetrated on the eleventh anniversary of the worse terror-attack committed on U.S. soil in the nation’s history. Let’s take a deeper look into the UMGA speech and the soundbites not being played by our national media.
The U.S. voted for U.N. Resolution “16/18” against “religious intolerance,” “condemning the stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion,” on December 19th, 2011. The U.N. “anti-blasphemy” resolution been voted on by the OIC in the Human Rights Councils every year since 1999 and in the General Assembly every year since 2005.
The Obama Administration brokered a compromise for the implementation allowing the measure to pass the U.N. General Assembly unanimously. The only example of interfaith dialogue mentioned in the resolution is in Saudi Arabia.
Said U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom Suzan Johnson Cook, “We must denounce offensive speech whenever we encounter it — but our commitment to universal principles makes clear that faith must never be a crime and religion must never be used as an excuse to stifle freedom of expression.”
The aim of the “anti- blasphemy” resolution is not to protect religion but to clamp down on freedom of expression. Most Western democracies have voted against, seeing it as a threat to free speech.
Therefore. it wasn’t a surprise to hear President Obama tell the UN General Assembly, “It is time to marginalize those who — even when not directly resorting to violence — use hatred of America, or the West, or Israel, as the central organizing principle of politics. For that only gives cover, and sometimes makes an excuse, for those who do resort to violence.”
What is bothersome is the idea that he’s suddenly being hailed in the media as a defender of “free speech,” while wanting to “marginalize” those practicing free-speech, no matter how offensive, for doing so.
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