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7. Franklin Graham of the Billy Graham Evangelism Association
Quite unlike the conciliatory perspectives of his famous father, Graham is known for outrageous statements on Islam. The Pentagon pulled him from the National Day of Prayer in April. He does not support the mosque in any way.
• On building the mosque: "It's hypocrisy. It's mockery. It's mocking the 3,000 Americans who died just around the corner, who were killed by Islamists in the name of Islam. There was not one Islamic cleric who oversees outside the U.S. who condemned [the 9/11 attacks]. If this had been a Catholic saying his Hail Mary's flying into the World Trade Center, the Pope would have been on television that night denouncing it. The lack of universal condemnation by the Islamic world, their silence, shows their support of this. President Bush and President Obama made great mistakes when they said that Islam is a peaceful religion. It is not. There is no evidence in its history. It's a religion of hatred. It's a religion of war."
• "I've seen what happened to Christians and Jews and people of minority faiths [under Islam]. To have a mosque where the [imams] around the world did not condemn 9/11 and for Islamists to build a 13-story whatever it is — mosque, community center — at the actual foot of the towers that the Islamists brought down in the name of Islam is a terrible thing to happen.
• "Our country was attacked politically on 9/11, militarily on 9/11 and theologically on 9/11. The Muslims began a campaign to build Islam in the U.S. after 9/11, under this banner that 'We are a people of peace.' It is a great mistake, and Obama protects them and has gone out of his way to support Islam."
• "I don't think the government should move the mosque. I think the Muslims, out of respect, should decline to build at the foot of the World Trade Center."
• "It's not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. This is something that is at the very core of this country. [Americans] have been tolerant of people of other religions, but this religion attacked America, and it attacks and kills Christians and Jews. This religion, all over the world, has been persecuting the innocent. What they do to women alone is horrific. The honor killings that take place, Shari'a law, where a man can rape his wife as often as he wants because it's his right to rape her — this stuff is practiced in Islam, and that mosque represents Islam."
• "If you want to see what true Islam is like, all you have to do is go to Saudi Arabia. Women can't drive cars. They can't have a passport unless their husband says they can have one. They have to keep themselves veiled. They can't go out in public to show their face. They don't have any rights but to make their husbands happy sexually. They don't have any rights. They are treated like cattle. When a woman becomes pregnant, they are all happy about that, but now he can take another wife. Because that woman is pregnant, he can take another wife. And after she bears children and is not as pretty and pleasing to him anymore, he can divorce her and take a younger wife and take them up to as young as 9 years of age. The wife goes back to her brother or father, but [the husband] keeps the children. She doesn't keep the children. Islam is all about satisfying the man sexually. He can have up to four wives at one time. He can have 100 wives, but he can only have four at a time. This is the religion. Where Jesus Christ gave freedom to women and elevated women, Islam degrades women and enslaves women."
• "The President has made a big mistake in coming out in support of this. He is going to turn even what they call the 'professional left' against him. They are not supportive of this. I've just found a few people who are supportive of this. [Mayor] Bloomberg is one of them, and he's made a big mistake."
• "It wasn't Islam that built America; it was the people of the Christian-Judeo faith that built [the U.S.]. We've given freedom to other religions to come, and now you have other religions coming that want to bring America down."
• "The goal of Islam is world domination. That's the goal. Wherever you plant a mosque, the people who attend the mosque walk to that mosque. They have to be able to get there by foot. The entire area they walk by foot they claim is Islamic territory. They will claim now that the World Trade Center property [and] everything within that area is now Islamic land, just like they claimed Israel as Islamic land. Saudi Arabia — Christians and Jews lived there hundreds of years before Islam, thousands of years. And there's not a Christian left, there is not a Jew left. They have all been destroyed."