Right embarrassed by the truth

No example of anything Mr Spencer has said which might be unacceptable. Just the stifling of debate.

Matt C Abbott, Catholic columnist with RenewAmerica, referring to Spencer's latest book Not Peace But a Sword: The Great Chasm Between Christianity and Islam (published by Catholic Answers) has this to say: "Yet another diocesan head-scratcher. This time, it's the Diocese of Sacramento .

...Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto apparently doesn't want to deal with the protests of the 'politically-correct' left. Or perhaps he just doesn't like Spencer's work. It's hard to say, though, because the diocese has not issued an explanatory statement as to why it canceled Spencer's parish talk. A diocesan official, while acknowledging my email inquiry about the situation, did not elaborate.

Spencer's book is reviewed by Father C.J. McCloskey at the website of the National Catholic Register.

In his review Fr. McCloskey says:

This book is his most interesting yet, as it makes the case for the fundamental disagreement between Christianity and Islam. Spencer writes: 'One of the oddities of contemporary 'interfaith dialogue' is that, all too often, out of overzealous irenicism, it glosses over, or ignores altogether, the disagreements between religious traditions, as if pretending that they didn't exist would make them go away.

Spencer expands on the vast differences between Christianity and Islam on the character of God, Jesus and Divine revelation; the nature of truth and the moral law; religious freedom and other basic rights; life issues, marriage and sexual morality, including the rights and dignity of women....

 ...At its worst, Islam is diabolical; at its best, it is a Christian heresy .... The ultimate answer to the threat of Islam from within or without the United States is not just a strong defense, but a virtuous people who believe in and live their lives by the universal Church that Christ founded.

Closer to home, attempts to get anything but the leftist view of Islam into the pages of News Weekly, the fortnightly journal of the National Civic Council founded by Bob Santamaria, have been stifled. There is simply no way to get the truth about Islam exposed to legitimate discussion. Even articles already published have been removed from the News Weekly website, thus creating a misleading archive.

In an exchange with Mr Peter Westmore, National President of the NCC and publisher of News Weekly, I found it difficult to get him to understand that the problem is not Robert Spencer, but Islam itself. His attitude was that Robert Spencer was somehow associated with Sergei Trifkovic (as if that alone was sufficient). Mr Westmore did not appear to know very much about Islam, and certainly was not aware of its violent past and present. He appeared to believe that if we dialogue with Muslims, the problem will just go away, and failed to understand that moderate Muslims are a bit like lapsed Christians. They simply don't follow the teachings of Islam.

Most Muslims are peaceful, law-abiding citizens, just as Robert Spencer has always said. Islam itself, however, is another matter. Its abrogations, deceptions and calls to terror must be allowed to see the light of day. Any attempt to suppress the truth will have tragic consequences for our children and grandchildren.

The cure? I suspect that a few minutes listening to Robert Spencer will demonstrate to any reasonable person just how serious is the danger we face.

Finally, see how Mr Spencer is regarded by those who actually understand the situation. In his column Matt Abbott does not hesitate to call a spade a spade, and points out the effective censorship of Mr Spencer's opinions, although the bishop is unable to identify any offence on Mr Spencer's part.

In this the bishop performs the same function as do Peter Westmore and the National Civic Council. They forbid hearing the opinions of Mr Spencer and those who agree with him. The bishop is effectively saying: Spencer begets violence - if we let him talk, the Muslims will get mad at us, and it will be his fault. Better to keep him out, and let the Muslims speak unopposed. Then we'll all have peace.

That's it. Punish the victim. The Left does it all the time. Now we have conservatives aping them.