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ASSOCIATED PRESS – Franklin Graham cut from Pentagon event

Published On: April 22, 2010|Categories: News|29 Comments|

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29 Comments

  1. joe April 22, 2010 at 6:15 pm

    you are a coward…are you really afraid of Rev. Graham? I have a son in special forces who would love just a few minutes with you…anyway to get in touch with personally?

  2. Daniel Rundquist April 22, 2010 at 7:55 pm

    WHAT A PHONEY BOLONEY ORGANIZATION!!!! Muslims are killing, raping and terrorizing the world and your afraid of Mr. Graham- Wake up!!

  3. urElder April 22, 2010 at 8:42 pm

    Gates, McHugh, and Casey’s decision to yield to Weinstein’s plea to keep Graham from speaking at the National Day of Prayer clearly indicates and proves the spine-less, weak military leaders America has in the Pentagon. The real men on the battlefields know the enemy, including the evil Islamic influences and appreciate the prayers of the people they are defending. We must not allow the evil islamic religion to creep into our culture — it IS anti-American!

  4. Timothy May April 22, 2010 at 9:15 pm

    4-22-10
    Sir,
    It doesn’t take a great deal of time or the intelligence of a rocket scientist to see that the first three words of your organization are at war with each other and with American religious freedom and rights as practiced by and protected by our armed forces on this continent from well before the First War for Independence. It appears that when the Constitution was being taught, Mr. Weinstein’s focus was elsewhere…how else to explain why Mr. Weinstein completely ignores American history, the fact that without the hand of Divine Providence, there would never have been a Declaration of Independence, which our founding fathers without shame attributed to the Bible and the will of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Founder God of their nation. From the Biblically-inspired Declaration of Independence and more Divine inspiration came the Constitution and the Bill of Rights…Mr. Weinstein does NOT speak for me, Vietnam-era Vet that I am, when he attempts to deny me in his mission statement my freedom to worship my God in uniform as an undeniable part of my Constitutional rights. It was part and parcel of why I served. I would remind Mr. Weinstein that, as a Jew, he owes his freedom and safety and the freedom of Jews worldwide to “The Greatest Generation”, which is why I believe this nation was created…I would also remind that Islam is the implacable enemy of the Jew…did Jews fly planes into the WTC? No, but many died there that day…you are a hypocrite, an atheist, a charlatan, a fraud, and the blood of our soldiers who die from the moral and spiritual support you are taking from our military and giving to the implacable enemies of Christianity and Judaism is on your hands and on your head. I condemn you, sir, in the most vile terms. And, yes, paradoxically, I am praying for you as well.
    Timothy May, (former) Staff Sergeant, USMC, 1973 – 1987

  5. Allen Davies April 23, 2010 at 3:31 am

    Graham really went too far with his comments. We have very little credibility for what we have done to others in the past and recent past and it is the last thing we want others to raise as an issue with us.

    Graham had the typical Gung Ho Republican in power with GW Bush and his gang so he let fly. It can’t be said he was inspired by god or the holy spirit. He was clearly playing politics and dirty politics at that. It was idiocy. He is a rich white Republican using god as his excuse for his bigotry.

    We need no kow tow to the extremists of Islam or any other religion. But where there is a clear threat to our men and women in uniform and to our civilian population for such undignified unChristian outbursts and insults by Graham, some one has to stand up to him. And the army did. It is unfortunate but thats the world today.

    Now we can challenge the Muslim radicals to lift their standards in this respect and our troops can at leasst enjoy the credibility of what America stands for.

    Graham and his family have been under the spotlight for a long time now. It is for all the wrong reasons that they continue in that spot now.

  6. usafagrad April 23, 2010 at 6:53 am

    Joe – amazing how quickly your simple mind resorts to offering up your son to beat someone up. Grownups are supposed to be able to use their WORDS.

  7. usafagrad April 23, 2010 at 6:56 am

    Timothy, take another look at what MRFF and Mikey are trying to do. No one is trying to deny a serviceman or woman’s right to worship. All MRFF says is that one cannot use their position and/or authority to force their religious beliefs on others, while on duty. Is that too much to ask?

  8. usafagrad April 23, 2010 at 6:59 am

    Daniel, it’s ‘BOLOGNA’ not ‘BOLONEY’ and ‘you’re’, not ‘your’. If you can’t get your basic grammar right, how can you claim to know anything about every Muslim in the world?

  9. I. Bossert April 23, 2010 at 7:36 am

    Sgt. May is right on the money, I guess we are to forget who flew into the WTC and also the Muslim who shot all those boys at Camp Hood. I’m an old Vet (the Koren War) but without the prayers and help that came to us as a nation of people of all faiths, We would not be standing today, but I guess now that we have a Muslim President who does not like the Military, I suppose that we should understand. It won’t last long, so why worry.

  10. adamspappa April 23, 2010 at 8:16 am

    Today I am sad for my country — What a paradox-a highly-esteemed Christian leader is denied the right to practice his freedom of religion, in the name of freedom of religion; The “leader” of the greatest military in the history of the world has bent his knee to the will of the enemy; the very enemy whom he has vowed to fight–to protect and defend this nation from-the enemy whose goal it is to literally take over the world, to see that every human being is subjected to the law of Islam–well, congratulations, sir!
    There is just one problem with that — God says that “when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him” – and this enemy will not stand………..
    Also, may I add my own personal thank you to USMC Timothy May (above) for your service to this country, along with the men and women who are sacrificing their lives and the lives of their families for me and my family. God Bless You.

  11. Allen Davies April 23, 2010 at 4:55 pm

    Really? who saw the “Mulsims” fly into the world trade centre building to determine they were Muslims? and I suppose Lt. Williamn Joseph Calley was Muslim too? or Lee Harvey Oswald, Or James Earl Ray, Or the Jew who assassinated Prime Minister Rabin in Israel? or better still people like Charles Manson, or John Gotti or Carlo Gambino or others like Rev. Jim Jones in Guyana and the 900 he slaughtered. Maybe WACO is a little closer to home like Timothy McVeigh 15 years on.

    Hey these are “Church going” hand on their heart good ole boys Christians. All of them. Its not about your reinforced stereptypes. It is about ignorance and Billy Graham and his son Franklin are not serving gods purpose nor the future of the old USA playing god.

    They are inviting trouble from an enemy we do no need. The day Franklin puts on a uniform and goes to the frontlines of Irak or Afghanistan he will have that right to be ignorant. And I will respect that right to be ignorant and free for him. Till then I do not want my boy coming home in a body bag.

  12. Allen Davies April 23, 2010 at 10:09 pm

    The levels of threats of violence, the language and the abject unmitigated ignorance amongst Graham’s supporters here tell us what Graham supports and what mentality he believes is right. “I have a son in special forces who would like a few minutes with you” is the type of threat Graham’s idea of God and Jesus is. Thats not what the special forces are for. Thats for cowards and bullies.

    No one is afraid of the big bad woolf. You haven’t been in the army in war Joe. Special forces guys crying out “Maam and Medic” makes you realise that no amount of training prepares someone for that moment he is hit and faces the reality of dying. Nothing does.

    What intelligent people prepare for is the ividend of peace and rebuilding after a smart quick war built on the truth and proper intelligence. Not the wars that fatten politicians at the expense of our best.

    How times change and for what. Trade and money. Today China is our major supplier of goods and we make her rich at the expense of our workers. China supported Viet nam against us in that war for a while. She is still communist and supports North Korea. Why did Bush not firght a war against her instead? no oil? and Graham was party to that decision to go to Irak.

    Graham is no soldier of the US Armed forces nor is he a soldier of God. Nor are those who follow the man.

  13. Barb April 24, 2010 at 10:18 pm

    Allen Davies – grow up, learn America & may you fall so that the only one to pick you up is God, so that you will know Him! Or maybe you’re SO far away from ANY faith, that’s not possible –

    BTW, learn how to communicate with the written word – your subject matter is VERY disjointed without facts.

    For the record, America, was founded as “One Nation Under God”. And yes, that is “God” and we are a “Christian Nation” – go read the U.S. Constitution. If you, or other faiths don’t like that, then YOU can leave the U.S.A. or stay here and comply with those facts.

  14. bob wyre April 24, 2010 at 10:26 pm

    Thomas Jefferson and James Madison opposed governmental proclamations for days of prayer and fasting. As president, Jefferson flatly refused to issue them. Madison issued such proclamations under pressure from Congress during the War of 1812 but later said he wished he hadn’t. Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh president, also refused to issue religious proclamations.

    Here is what Jefferson, Madison and Jackson had to say on the subject:

    Thomas Jefferson: On Jan. 23, 1808, Jefferson replied to a minister named Samuel Miller who had asked him to issue a religious proclamation. Denying the request, Jefferson wrote, “I consider the government of the US. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.…. I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it….[E]very one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, & mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the US. and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.”… See More

    James Madison: In an undated essay historians believe was written between 1817 and 1832, Madison listed five reasons why presidents should not issue prayer proclamations. “The members of a Govt as such can in no sense, be regarded as possessing an advisory trust from their Constituents in their religious capacities,” Madison wrote. “They cannot form an ecclesiastical Assembly, Convocation, Council or Synod, and as such issue decrees or injunctions addressed to the faith or the Consciences of the people.” Madison also criticizes prayer proclamations because they “imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of a national religion.” For more information, read the relevant passage from the full essay.

    Andrew Jackson: Jackson considered religious proclamations a violation of the First Amendment. Asked to approve a proclamation setting aside an official day of fasting and prayer in response to a cholera epidemic, he refused and in 1832 wrote, “I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.”

  15. Jeff April 26, 2010 at 9:16 am

    As Joseph once told his brothers, “What you meant for evil, God has used for good.” You brought more publicity to this event than any person could have ever imagined. The turnout should be incredible. God bless.

  16. Tony Cruz April 26, 2010 at 10:01 am

    Thank you Timothy — your comments are on-point! …and yes, we should continually pray for those in opposition to and spiritually blind to the truth of salvation through Jesus Christ. After all has been said and done, yes, God wins — His word goes out and does not return to Him void, but accomplishes His purposes. (Isiah 55:11)
    Tony Cruz,(former) Sergeant First Class, USA, 1968 – 1984 (Vietnam 68-69)(/i)

  17. hcp2010 April 26, 2010 at 12:37 pm

    “The Pentagon withdrew Graham’s ill-conceived speaking honor, with MRFF’s lawyers on the federal courthouse steps, just 48 hours after we launched our demand letter. At least on that fine day, Lady Liberty smiled.”

    I’m glad you are so happy that Lady Liberty smiled. Unfortunately, Lady Liberty will not get you into heaven, only Jesus Christ, the one Franklin Graham speaks about………..

  18. babygirl April 26, 2010 at 6:52 pm

    You’re not afraid of Franklin Graham, YOU ARE AFRAID OF (GOD) AND WHAT HE WILL DO!!!!

  19. Panzer721 April 26, 2010 at 7:15 pm

    Unfortunately folks, arguing about religion & politics will never settle anything. As Rodney King said, “Can’t we all just get along?” LOL !! All this killing in the name of a certain religion is REALLY retarded & stupid !! Here’s what I suggest: Believe what you want to & leave everyone else alone !! And if you believe in the wrong religion, then I guess you won’t be in Heaven will you? I sure as heck ain’t going to KILL someone over their religious beliefs–you must be kiddin’ me, right? there’s WAY more to life than worring about everyone’s religious beliefs. Take care of yourself & stop worring about everybody else’s business. Please note that I do believe in the following: Guns, Guts & God made & keep America Free. I don’t care if you don’t like it–that’s my opinion. It’s a free country–make up your own mind. Everyone needs to “Grow Up” & stop bickering like children. Oh, and STOP the killing in the name of religion !!

  20. Stephanie April 27, 2010 at 2:18 pm

    Thanks for bringing this to light and stirring up the people of this country to see how import the Day Of Prayer is. You have fired up thousands of people who would more than likely be complacent about DOP. Now we are so not letting this end. CONGRATS!

  21. Shahida Fozia April 27, 2010 at 2:25 pm

    Let me ask this questions: if I am a person of prominent position belonging to some other religion, and based on what is going on in USA and many other Christian countries, if I issue a statement to the effect that Christianity promotes adultery, have no respect of constitution of marriage and in Christian countries women are forced to wear dresses that make them more naked than covered bala bala bala. Is it my freedom of speech or am I misrepresenting a religion. Though many people in USA or other Christian countries have relationships outside the marriages but it is still not true that Jesus or Bible preached this behavior. Here women are inclined to wear more revealing cloths, one extreme is their dresses in Dancing with the Stars. in some cases perhaps they are forced to wear them may be because they want a job in modeling, or feel compelled to compete with that other girl who is leaning on her boyfriend or husband but bottom line is that majority of them wear what they wear at their will.
    When you point injustice toward say women in Saudi Arab that is freedom of speech but when you say Islam promotes that injustice that is miss representation of a religion which equates to a lie. We can post things on this discussion thread or anywhere and it won’t have as much impact then a statement from a prominent religious leader. If Graham has valuable services, this is not discrediting him for those but he and people of bigger stature need to be more careful, not just Christian but Muslims as well. I think it was Qazafi who issued some statement about Jahad recently, I forget the detail but I know I condemned him because his statement was also misinterpreting Islam.

  22. Nicole April 27, 2010 at 7:08 pm

    I was on this site yesterday and there were about 32 posts of which about 30 strongly opposed your position. Today there are only 20 of which 1/2 mysteriously support your “cause”. What did you do with those posts? I was interested in verifying the statements from a post where they had a speech from the prime minister of Australlia. I am sure you read it and deleted it.

    I am appaled at your quote on your home page in which in Hitler fashion you raise the status of patriotism to liken that of a religion. Our Country is not a higher being that takes care of us and deserves our worship but is shaped by those who dwell within it. It is the kind of statements as the one you have quoted in your web page that elevated to Hitler into a power to kill millions of Jews, gypsies, gays, blacks, Polish Christians,and “defected” people. You are nothing more than a media whore utilizing a “cause” in an attempt to gain notariety and maybe have your name land in a history book. I pray no one truly falls for your ill advised proganda. You should be ashamed fallen son of Abraham, no matter what position you attempt to elevate yourself to G*d will blow you away as the dust He formed you from.

  23. Glen April 29, 2010 at 12:04 pm

    Monumental victory for the MRFF, monumental failure for the USA.

  24. babygirl April 30, 2010 at 3:53 am

    Who is the genius that decided that it would be a good idea to ban the very people that ensures thier rights and freedoms are protected?

  25. Marjorie Miller April 30, 2010 at 7:14 am

    Is there anything Franklin Graham said about the Moslem faith that isn’t true. Speaking as a woman, I can only say I thank God I was born in a Christian country and not a Moslem one. To tell the truth, I am appalled at your organization’s promotion to rescind the invitation of one of the greatest Christians living today, both in his strong faith and his worldwide charity through Samaritan’s Purse.

  26. Eric May 1, 2010 at 1:03 am

    Weinstein said he hopes someone more “inclusive” will be invited to replace Graham.

    I know, since everyone is jumping in bed with Islam you should invite Osama Bin Laden.Your patriotism is a joke, It is a far cry from Christianity, the one and only true faith.But hey whatever you gotta do
    to feel important.

  27. Chris May 3, 2010 at 7:02 pm

    Military Religious Freedom??? Is this a joke. By your own words you say the only religious symbol is the flag, the only scripture is the Constitution and the only faith is patriotism….HOW IS THAT FREEDOM????? Seriously, what is your point?

  28. JohnnyRingo May 4, 2010 at 7:28 am

    A victory for an enemy of the state with the complicity of the state. Mikey will soon be defending the Times Square bomber and blaming America. That is what he does. That is who he is. The rest of us are just “Isamophobes”. Right Mikey?

  29. Kieselguhr Kid May 10, 2010 at 7:23 pm

    MRFF: I’m so grateful for what you do. Please continue, in good spirit and “with malice towards none,” because for many of us, serving is becoming a difficult choice. In our efforts to contribute to make a better world and a better country, we risk sending our own children a message that the kind of ignorance and chauvinism men like Graham promote, is acceptable. MRFF is making it easier to serve the country while not disserving my family and my faith, and it comforts me more than I can say.

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