Coalition draws fire for Muslim connections_20904

Posted: 2/06/04

Coalition draws fire for Muslim connections

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)– Conservative evangelicals involved in an anti-gay-marriage coalition are drawing fire from some of their ideological and spiritual comrades over associations with a Muslim group.

A prominent Southern Baptist and other conservative evangelical leaders have denounced a coalition of groups that oppose gay marriage because it includes a Muslim group they believe supports terrorism.

A series of articles in the conservative Jewish World Review has raised allegations that a pro-terrorism Muslim group is a part of the Alliance for Marriage.

The alliance is an umbrella group pushing for passage of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would ban marriage and the “legal incidents thereof” for same-sex couples.

Many conservative evangelicals–including Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land–have endorsed the amendment effort.

The Jewish World Review repeated accusations–voiced first by a terrorism expert–that the Islamic Society of North America supports terrorism by conducting fund-raisers for Palestinians accused of terrorism and by hosting conference speakers who defend radical Islamic terrorists.

Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation has reportedly declined to serve on the advisory board of the Alliance for Marriage because of the group's connection with the Islamic group. The Jewish World Review also reported comments by evangelist and former Southern Baptist Convention president Bailey Smith critical of the AFM.

“Is there any group that is hurting the world more than radical Islam?” Smith asked, according to a column by Jewish World Review writer Evan Gahr. “You can't mix darkness with light.”

Representatives of the Alliance for Marriage have declined to discuss the issue but reportedly have distributed letters from their attorney, noting that ISNA is not considered a terrorist group by the State Department. The letters also cite other terrorism experts who do not consider it a radical group.

Meanwhile, a group of messianic Jews also is taking some of their fellow conservative evangelicals to task for their associations. In a Jan. 6 story, the Washington Times publicized a Jews for Jesus year-end fund-raising letter in which the group's president sharply criticized several Christian leaders for their participation in the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

Jews for Jesus President David Brickner said involvement in the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is questionable because the pro-Israel group's leader, Chicago rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, is an outspoken public opponent of Christian evangelism of Jews.