The day before, Christian conservative leader Foster Friess had sent out an email urging conservatives in South Carolina to “forgive” Sanford for his transgressions and to vote for him. The email urged conservatives across the nation to ask their friends in South Carolina to vote for Sanford as well.

Although the establishment National Republican Congressional Committee abandoned Sanford after he violated a court order this year and entered the home of his ex-wife in the middle of the night, the “true” conservatives stuck with him. After he secured the nomination, social conservatives, including many of my good friends in Washington, D.C., halted any and all criticism of him. He received a free pass from virtually all of the Christian right so far as I can tell – except from me. My PAC – Government Is Not God – continued to expose him as threat to good government. But other social conservative leaders viewed the election of his opponent, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of comedian Steven Colbert, as the greater of two evils.

The problem of backing, tacitly or not, the disgraced governor has to do just not only with his mistress and divorce, but with the rule of law. When the commander of a military unit abandons his post, should he be rewarded or court martialed? Sanford was the commander in chief of the state of South Carolina, including the National Guard, and he abandoned his post as commander for a hookup in Argentina. Why no one on the conservative side sees a problem with this, other than a very few, is sort of baffling.

Sanford disappeared for several days in 2009 to fly to Argentina to meet in person with Maria Belen Chapur, whom he had met online. He lied about his whereabouts to his office and to the public as well as to his family. He was completely out of contact for days without transferring power to the lieutenant governor. In the event of a disaster, natural or otherwise, he would not have been available to activate the National Guard or direct assets of the state. Put plainly he deserted his post as commander. He also used a state-owned aircraft, meaning taxpayers financed his “personal time” in Argentina. Eventually he was censured by South Carolina’s Ethics Commission and forced to repay the cost of using the jet.

It is bothersome that many social conservatives, such as Foster Friess, not only ignored Sanford’s unfaithfulness to his wife, the lies to his children and the public, but his misuse of the public trust as well.

By backing Mark Sanford, or by saying nothing to stop his re-ascendancy, the social conservative leaders of the Christian right have declared that they are Republicans first and moral leaders maybe second, third or fourth. If social conservative leaders can ignore the transgressions of Mark Sanford, who is currently shacked up with his mistress, what else will they ignore in support of the GOP?

In the more than 30 years I have worked around Capitol Hill, I have watched the political power virus take down many good men or women. That photo with a senator or maybe even a president becomes worth taking off the garment of righteousness and hanging it at the door to the seat of power. Once that garment is taken off, it is very hard to put back on.

Who will listen now to the purveyors of righteousness in the Christian conservative lobby of Capitol Hill, when they come forward in future primaries to anoint the most “moral” candidate? It is now known that after any primary they will all “hold their noses” and jump on board the Republican bandwagon. With that knowledge, what difference does it make if the establishment backs someone who is openly homosexual, smokes dope, has two wives or has previously abused the power of office?

On May 7, social conservative leaders sent a clear message to the GOP establishment, the Democrats and to the media that their belief structure is infected so badly by politics that morals no longer matter.

R.I.P., Christian right.

In a Huffington Post article, Orthodox priest Peter-Michael Preble said of the two kidnapped bishops: “They were on a mission of peace, to bring aid and comfort, and they were taken hostage as part of the systematic extermination of the Christian population in Syria.”

As an eyewitness to Capitol Hill, I can say without hesitation that the Republican Party leadership is allowing the ethnic cleansing of Christians in Syria in order to obtain some minor political gain over President Obama. A momentary “we got you” win against Obama is more important to the Republican leadership than the lives of millions of Christians and the destruction of the ancient churches founded by Peter, Paul, John and the other early Saints. Rather than Speaker John Boehner using the power of his office to stop Obama’s support of the jihadist fighters in Syria, he is pushing for our overburdened and over-deployed Armed Forces to get directly involved.

On the Senate side, it is John McCain, who is the principal Republican promoter of the destruction of the Syrian church. McCain seems totally blind to the human suffering of war and has no regard for Christians suffering at the hands of the jihadists in Syria. As McCain sees it, Iran is currently our main enemy and eliminating one of its power bases – its alliance with Syria – is worth the human suffering and ethnic cleansing of the Christian population. McCain is actually pushing Obama to do even more damage in Syria. McCain has demanded that our Air Force face one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world, the Russian SA-22 Pantsir S1, so that we can assist jihadist fighters.

It is very true that Iran is a threat to the peace of the Middle East and to Israel, but arming jihadists associated with al-Qaida and allowing them to murder Christians and destroy churches in Syria does not seem to me as the optimal way to limit the power of Iran. Indeed, the harsh persecution of Christians by jihadist fighters supported in Syria by Barack Obama is no different than the persecution of Christians in Iran. At least in Iran the Christians get a phony show trial before they are jailed and tortured. In Syria, Christians are tortured and murdered with no trial at all and using American tax dollars given to jihadists by Barack Obama.

In Father Preble’s article he articulated the situation with great accuracy: “What has been called the ‘Arab Spring’ in Syria has become the Christian Nightmare, and it is high time that the United States government realize the part it has played and continues to play in this ethnic cleansing, genocide, holocaust, whatever word you choose to describe what is being perpetrated on the religious minorities in Syria as well as Egypt.”

Most Western news outlets have refused so far to carry news of the kidnappings of Christian clergy in Syria because it doesn’t’ fit the “Assad is the bad guy” story line. The press is silent even though the two bishops were kidnapped by Chechen jihadists, and this came just days after the Boston Marathon bombing by Chechen jihadists.

There is a petition at the White House with nearly 100,000 signers asking President Obama to assist in obtaining the release of the kidnapped bishops, but it is unlikely he will act since this would expose the true nature of those he supports in Syria, the jihadists. We must break this silence somehow; perhaps awareness through the White House petition will at least force some in the press to report on the abuse of Christians and the kidnapping of clergy in Syria by the American-supported jihadists. Besides the White House petition there is an online petition asking members of Congress to speak out about the kidnapping of Christian clergy in Syria that will be sent by fax free of charge.

President Barack Hussein Obama seems to love the death of others, and he seems to believe that God should bless those who murder the innocent. Not since Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, has a national leader asked for blessings through the sacrifice of babies. Manasseh sacrificed his own son to the Canaanite god Moloch, who was worshiped with the burning of children. Barack Obama has crossed God’s red line by petitioning Him to bless abortionists. Barack Obama now rivals Manasseh.

Gary L. Bauer, the former presidential candidate who is the president of American Values, probably best described Barack Obama’s presentation to Planned Parenthood in his daily email. First, he points out that Obama is the first president ever to address a meeting of Planned Parenthood.

Then Bauer writes:

“At the end of his speech, Obama did something truly astonishing. He said, ‘Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you. God bless America. Thank you.’

“Barack Obama called on the God of the universe, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who hung stars in sky, to bless Planned Parenthood. Obama called on the God who knows us so well that He knows the number of hairs on our heads to bless Planned Parenthood. Obama called the God who said ‘I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life,’ to bless Planned Parenthood.

“For many men and women of faith, that was a jarring, perhaps even shameful, moment. In an administration full of shameful moments, that may have been the most shameful of all.”

The focus of the Religious Freedom Coalition, of which I am chairman, is the persecuted church. A national leader asking God to bless abortionists is more than an attack on the church; it is an attack on God Himself. In his closing remarks at the Planned Parenthood convention, Barack Hussein Obama petitioned God to bless baby killers.

There is only one modern religion in which God is openly petitioned to assist in murder, and that can be heard in the cry of “Allahu Akbar” by Muslims as they slaughter Christians in Nigerian villages or set off bombs at the Boston Marathon. Perhaps if Obama had paid more attention at church as an adult, and less attention at mosque as a child, he would not ask God to bless those who kill the innocent.

In the first three-minute video clip, two men in civilian clothes, and with their hands and feet bound, were dragged to the edge of a trench. With victorious music playing in the background and the encouragement of a cameraman speaking Turkish, one could see the two men shudder as their brains were blown out, one at a time. As the bullets were fired, a cheer went up in Russian from the Chechnya fighters, and the flag of al-Qaida was waved back and forth for the cameraman. As each victim was shot, his body, with hands and feet still tied, was kicked into the trench. As the camera panned to the trench, headless bodies of civilian men could be seen within it. (The beheading was edited from the following video [warning: graphic footage]).

None of the dead men had a visible beard, which indicates that all of them had probably been either Christians or secularists. In Syria, as in other Middle Eastern nations, for the most part only the Muslim men have beards.

I was not watching secretly made videos of the murders, but rather recruitment videos for jihad fighters to come to Syria and help overthrow the secular government of Syria. Showing the murder and torture of men who are bound and helpless while being shot or beheaded is apparently a good jihadist recruitment tool.

After watching the Russian-speaking jihadists kill civilians, I watched the next video of an American jihadist, an Army veteran, brag of his exploits of murder and mayhem with an al-Qaida flag behind him. Then I moved on to a third video – not public – of beheadings, again of apparent civilians in plain clothes and without beards. But this time the killers consisted of a Libyan brigade of jihadists. In the fourth video no one died, but it contained graphic beatings of women who were referred to as “Assad’s whores.” I had seen such tapes before from the Mujahideen, in the 1980s. Those, too, were recruitment videos, but the purpose then was to raise an Islamist army to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Of course, the NATO nations only support the “moderate, democratic” rebels who are fighting with the jihadists to topple the secular government of Syria. But don’t look for a prison camp where these “moderate rebels” hold enemy prisoners. No prisoners are taken in this war, except by the “totalitarian” government of Syria.

On the “rebel” side of the battle lines in Syria, the black flag of jihad and the flag of al-Qaida fly visibly everywhere. Western media have to go to great lengths to shoot video or take photos that do not show the jihadist flags. When that is not possible, the flags are simply not explained in the story. The media do not want to expose the fact that Europe and the United States have switched sides in the War on Terror so that a strategic “omelet” can be made – more on the omelet later.

Incredibly, less than 12 years after al-Qaida fighters from Saudi Arabia flew civilian aircraft into two World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon, the United States is supporting an al-Qaida-backed insurgency in Syria, the goal of which is to create an Islamic state free of Christians. In Washington, D.C., there is bipartisan support for the fighters waging the war to rid Syria of its secular government. Not only does the Democratic president, Barack Obama, support the Islamic “rebels,” but so do hawkish Republican senators such as John McCain and Lindsay Graham.

The trend did not start with Barack Obama, as much as some would like to put the entire blame on him for the Arab Spring fiasco that has become an Islamist Winter. President George W. Bush set one precedent by invading the secular nation of Iraq and sending hundreds of thousands of Christians who had lived there safely and prosperously into chaos, death and refugee status.

To complete the work of Bush Obama is cleansing the remainder of the Middle East of secular governments. Those in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are gone; all have been replaced with repressive Islamist states masquerading as democracies, and all of them support the goals of Saudi Arabia in Islamizing the world.

About the omelet:

Not too long ago an unnamed State Department official (probably a student of Lenin) said, “To make an omelet you have to break eggs, and in Syria the Christians are the eggs.” The omelet in this case is of a strategic nature; it is the isolation of Iran, which is considered a “main enemy” of the United States and Europe. Thus any friend of Iran (like Syria) is an enemy of the United States. The “main enemy” strategy is a holdover from the Cold War, a strategy that helped create the tragedy of 9/11.

The United States during the Clinton and Reagan administrations armed the predecessor of al-Qaida in Afghanistan to help defeat the occupation of that nation by our “main enemy” at the time, the Soviet Union. During the Reagan era, the Mujahideen were viewed as friends of the United States and were even glorified in the James Bond movie “The Living Daylights.” Indeed they were visitors to the White House, and I was personally at a reception with Mujahideen “freedom fighters” and then-Vice President George H.W. Bush.

Murder, including the beheadings of Soviet soldiers and civilians by the Mujahideen, was acceptable to the United States and its NATO partners at the time. At one point a platoon of captured Russian soldiers had their heads removed and placed on stakes without a word of complaint from then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger or anyone else in the Reagan administration or the Congress. I saw those videotapes at the time, as chairman of Freedom’s Friends in the 1980s. They were not much different from those on LiveLeaks, MRC and YouTube today showing the jihadist fighters in Syria.

The United States supported terrorist jihadists in the 1980s, long before 9/11, just as easily at it does today – so long as the purpose was the strategic aim of defeating a “main enemy.”

The problem with supporting mass murderers and terrorists in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and of supporting them in Syria today, is that they are not going to reform when America changes course and goes on to a new “main enemy.” Al-Qaida, the Mujahideen, or whatever will be the name of the Islamist group in the future, will always keep their goal the same – to kill infidels. When not killing infidels on behalf of the United States, they will simply kill infidels on their own, including, of course, American infidels.

Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama shared a core failing of not understanding the nature of the Islamists. All these leaders believed they were dealing with some level of rationality, which they were not. The Islamists are not rational and pragmatic in their thinking. Signing a treaty with France to defend Europe from the Soviets does not have the same outcome as arming and training Islamists, as we learned on 9/11. American leaders should have realized the defect in their logic of supporting jihadists after two attacks on the World Trade Center, numerous embassy bombings and the sinking of a naval vessel during the 20 or so year period after the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan.

The videos showing the murders of civilians and the brutal treatment of women by our “allies” in the war against Syria’s secular government are a testimony to the fact that the lesson has not been learned. The current strategic thinking against the “main enemy” in Iran has led to the consolidation of an Islamist power base in the Middle East that threatens world peace. For the sake of world peace and the survival of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East, the United States and the EU should abandon picking one Islamist group of infidel killers over the other and instead support the secularization of the region.

The arrests were made in the very wealthy Persian Gulf coastal town of Damman. Three of the Christian leaders, all women, were charged with seeking to convert Muslims to Christianity even though no Muslims were present at the prayer meeting.

Arresting Christian guest workers in Saudi Arabia is a common event, and in jail their treatment is usually horrendous, particularly if they are African. For example, during Advent of 2011 there was another arrest of Ethiopian Christians that was brutal. In that case, the mutawa stormed a prayer meeting at a private home in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, arresting 29 women and six men and jailing them for more than seven months. The men were barbarically beaten, and the women were subjected to torture of a sexually intrusive nature.

There was an outcry by some on Capitol Hill, but not from the White House.

Nina Shea, the director of the Washington-based Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, told FoxNews.com that the arrests in Dammam are “part of Saudi Arabia’s policy to ban non-Muslim houses of worship and actually hunt down Christians in private homes.”

In a FoxNews.com story run several weeks after the most recent arrest of Christians, Shea said, “The U.S. government does not raise its voice in protest” as part of the U.S.-Saudi strategic partnership. She added the failure to push the Saudis to change their intolerant behavior “has taken the backseat to oil and the war on terror. The Saudis are playing a double game – cooperating with the war on terror and working against the war on terror campaign.”

Nina Shea has been a powerful advocate for religious freedom for many years. She was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve for several years on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and is the author of “In the Lion’s Den: A Shocking Account of Persecuted and Martyrdom of Christians Today and How We Should Respond.”

So far only one lawmaker has spoken up about the latest abuse of Christians by the Saudi Arabia monarchy/dictatorship. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., who sits on the Caucus on Religious Minorities in the Middle East, said, “Nations that wish to be a part of the responsible nations of the world must see the protection of religious freedom and the principles of reason as an essential part of the duty of the state.”

In stark contrast to ignoring the persecution, even torture, of Christians by our Saudi “ally,” the Obama administration and many senators of both parties strongly condemned Russia when an all-female anarchist punk rock band calling themselves Pussy Riot was arrested for demonstrating in a rather foul performance inside Christ the King Orthodox Church in Moscow.

According to the Obama administration and the mainstream press, Russia should allow this form of “free expression” publicly, on the altar of a sacred church, yet when Saudi Arabia arrests Christians for praying in a private home, it’s not a problem at all. The liberal politicians and liberal press in the United States will stand up to defend the feminist rock band’s defiling of a sacred place, but have no desire to defend Christians who are tortured by the Islamic government of Saudi Arabia.

The Pussy Riot band members were charged with “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” because of their anti-church, anti-government performance at the altar of Christ the King Church, and the leaders were sentenced to two years in jail. In contrast, Christians in Egypt, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia have been sentenced to life prison terms or even death for “blasphemy,” with no liberal outrage manifested in any Western nation. Indeed, the liberal press often casts the blame on the victims of Islamic violence, as was the case in the attempted assassination this year of Lars Hedegaard the head of the Danish Free Press Society in Europe.

For liberals in the West, there will be a price to pay for their support of Islamic suppression of human rights. As Islam demographically, if not violently, overtakes the West, the radical left will be the first to pay with their heads for their support of drugs, homosexuality, prostitution and promiscuity – that is if God does not render judgment on them first.

See the riveting story of Christians who paid the ultimate price in Islamic Iran: “A Cry From Iran: The Untold Story of Iranian Christian Martyrs.”

Gerecht asserts that:

“Israel may one day be accepted by its Arab neighbors and by its most deadly foe, Iran – but only when Arab and Iranian Muslim identities allow for it. At best, that change is decades away. Modern Islam’s great internal tug of war, between the search for authenticity and the love of modernity, must quiet before the Israeli-Palestinian clash can end.”

The key word in this paragraph is “modernity,” which brings in the assumption that Islam will move out of the seventh century and somehow accept a Martin Luther who will “fix” Islam with a reformation that will bring about the equivalent of same-sex marriages in the Episcopal Church.

On what does Gerecht base his assumptions? Later in the column he writes:

“Yet if Western history is any guide, the growth of democracy slowly diminishes religious imperatives. Representative government demystifies politics and ethics, as the here-and-now takes precedence over abstract aspirations. It makes the mundane transcendent. It promotes healthy division because it puts competing visions, even competing fundamentalist visions, to the vote. It localizes ambitions and focuses people’s passions on the national purse.”

Western history is no more a guide for modernizing Islamic nations through democracy than Stalinist history was a model to modernize China. It took over 500 years, from the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 until the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, for cultural acceptance of democratic thought despite a Judeo-Christian religious base that promotes the dignity of the individual’s rights. Islam has no such history or character.

And to what “national pulse” does Gerecht refer? The Super Bowl? Europeans are less in touch than even Americans with any political pulse other than to demand even more benefits from their governments.

Apparently Gerecht sees a morally splintered Western society in which citizens have the power to vote themselves lavish entitlements as the model for the Middle East. His discussion of democracy shows his total lack of understanding that the words democracy and freedom have different definitions. Democracy is merely a process of selecting leaders and is in no way synonymous with freedom, as can be seen in the United Kingdom where even politicians are jailed for their Facebook comments which are deemed politically incorrect.

In that same paragraph he asserts that democracy “puts competing visions, even competing fundamentalist visions, to the vote.” When has this ever happened anywhere? Are the views of Orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Baptists, conservative Catholics or murderous mullahs put to the vote in Western democracies? This is nonsense.

Speaking briefly of Iran, Gerecht states:

“The Iranian people, if their votes could rule, would surely restore diplomatic relations with Washington and possibly even with Israel.”

This statement on Iran’s electoral process is false. The current Islamist president of Iran was elected by a vast majority of the people. The youth who demonstrated in the streets for change in 2009 were a minority and were easily crushed by the government.

Contradicting his own statement about Iran, Gerecht then says of the new Islamist states around Israel that were created by Barack Obama and his EU partners:

“Their attempts to enforce certain Islamic values through legislation will inevitably produce faction and fatigue. Secularists will grow stronger. And unlike their great liberal forbearers of the 19th and early-20th centuries, Muslim secularists who win at the ballot box will be much less inclined to kowtow to orthodox Islamic sentiments.”

Gerecht reaches this conclusion by showing a profound lack of knowledge of the basic tenets of Islam and the history surrounding it.

At the end of the article is Gerecht’s prediction of peace in the Middle East:

“The age of Islamism and democracy has just arrived. The interplay may be long, arduous and ugly. But it is conceivable that Israelis, Arabs and Iranians will finally find a modus vivendi based on something more profound than land-for-peace. It will be based on free men voting.”

He conveniently does not mention that Turkey, now firmly controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, had a secularist democratic government for decades after its founding by Ataturk. Turkey’s constitution outlawed religious political parties, and the army was tasked to protect the secular nature of the nation. After the Muslim Brotherhood came to power – in a democratic election – repression began. Dozens of generals have been sentenced to long prison sentences for “conspiracies” that allegedly occurred decades ago. Turkey has jailed more journalists than Iran since the rise to power of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Once an ally of Israel, the nation of Turkey is now perhaps that nation’s most dangerous enemy as it is well armed with modern weapons from NATO nations.

Does Turkey represent Mr. Gerecht’s vision of “modernity” of Islam under democracy?

Mr. Gerecht’s ideas about the modernization of Islam under democracy come from his time at the CIA and help explain the bizarre actions of presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in addressing the Middle East. Apparently our entire security apparatus is advising our presidents that the ballot box is the cure-all for societies based on the sixth- and seventh-century theology of illiterates whose idea of government was enslavement and the sword. Mr. Gerecht now serves with a conservative think tank that features this article with the image of a burning Israeli flag. It is worth noting that almost the entire GOP establishment in Washington, D.C., backs President Barack Obama in giving modern tanks and fighter jets to radical Islamist leaders such as Mohammed Morsi of Egypt.

Real scholars, such as Stephen Coughlin, who understand the nature of Islam and who have studied the great jihad periods of history have been purged from the Pentagon, NSA, CIA and FBI in favor of those approved by CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations). Agency manuals on terror have been cleansed of words such as “Islamist” and “jihad” in hopes this appeasement will bring democracy and love for the West among those calling for the destruction of the “Great Satan.”

With “specialists” such as Reuel Marc Gerecht giving advice to presidents, Congress and generals, the situation is virtually hopeless and defeat of the West at the hands of the Islamists almost certain.

The onslaught of Islam after the fall of Constantinople was stopped literally at the Gates of Vienna in 1683. Manufacturers in Christian nations sold arms to the Ottoman Empire despite the continued raids on Europe by Muslim pirates, and the capture and enslavement of European women. Muslim pirates raided the shores of Europe as far north as Ireland for centuries, taking women and young boys as slaves.

Before President Thomas Jefferson sent the Marines to Tripoli to defeat the Muslim pirates that ruled the Mediterranean, the single biggest expense in the early federal budget was for payments of tributes to them. Even so, American exporters sold staples to the same Muslim nations that raided our cargo ships. During the same time period, Americans were buying African slaves from the Arab Muslim slave traders of Africa. Virtually every slave brought to America’s shores was purchased from the Muslims who controlling North Africa.

The lesson is never learned by those whose sole motive is profit. This month Lockheed Martin will begin delivery of 20 advanced F-16s to Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Egypt. American companies, with the permission of President Obama, will also deliver to Egypt 100 advanced Abrams battle tanks. What does Egypt need these tanks for? Are they threatened by their Muslim neighbors, Libya or Sudan – or are these modern weapons needed for a future war against Israel and the “infidels” of the West?

Egyptian President Morsi’s comments should give us at least some idea of what he wants the fighters and tanks for. For example, he said “Amen” to a sermon in a mosque in October 2012 when the preacher called for Allah to “destroy the Jews and their supporters.” In 2010 Morsi stated, “Dear brothers, we must not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews, and all those who support them.” The “all those who support them” would be the U.S.

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, the world’s only fifth-generation multi-role fighter, is being sold to Turkey, which is also now controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Boeing has sold its most advanced F-15 to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis also bought advanced Eurofighter Tornadoes from the British; these are used as ground attack aircraft. Who do the Saudis plan to fight?

On Capitol Hill, the permission for these sales to the enemies of Israel, who are also the enemies of secularism and Christianity, comes easily. Democrats see Muslims as natural allies, and most Republicans care only about supporting defense contractors. In Congress, very few votes are ever cast against these arms sales to Islamic interests, except by social conservatives. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., a social conservative, recently wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to stop the sale to Egypt. “Simply put, the U.S. should not be providing military assistance to a regime that supports Hamas and is looking more and more like a dictatorship than a trustworthy democracy,” Buchanan wrote.

On the Senate side the push to arm these natural enemies of freedom and democracy comes from Sen. John McCain, who never met a military export he did not like. McCain did acknowledge this month the hate speech of Egyptian President Morsi, as when Morsi called Jews “dependents of pigs and apes.” Yet McCain still backs the sale of arms, as well as a half-billion-dollar aid package to the Muslim Brotherhood!

In the Muslim nations we sell arms to, there is general hatred for America, Jews, Christianity and Western values such as equal rights for women. Saudi women are not even allowed to be out of their houses unless escorted by a male relative. Christian workers from the Philippines in Saudi Arabia are beaten and imprisoned if they are found with a Bible or if they meet to pray. Yet Congress never makes these arms sales conditional on any improvement of human rights.

Because of polygamy under Islam, most men in strict Islamic nations never have the opportunity to marry unless they migrate to the West, taking Islam and jihad with them. Rather than becoming more moderate, they bring their hatred for our values with them. In Islam, human life is cheap and executions are frequent for crimes that in the West we do not even deem to be crimes – such as blasphemy or converting from Islam to Christianity. Still the arms sales to these nations continue.

Israel is today’s Constantinople, and the United States and Europe are arming its enemies. The news media and establishment in the West are turning increasingly anti-Semitic and critical of Israel, while turning a blind eye to the human-rights outrages in Muslim-controlled nations. Europe is against Jews building homes in Jerusalem, but are not critical at all of Islamist “rebels” blowing up university dorms in Aleppo, Syria.

There is a day of reckoning coming to the Western establishment. The human cost of defending Rome at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, or staving off the hordes of Islam at the Gates of Vienna in 1453, was very great. And the weapons of war then had only one-hundredth of the killing power as those of today. The thousand-year war against Europe and the West by Islam is not over, and never will be. This time, however, America has become the source of arms far deadlier than were the cannons supplied to the Ottomans to destroy the walls of Constantinople.

Watch a video version of this column:

There were about six people in the whirlpool including a Jewish couple from New Jersey, a Muslim businessman from the African nation of Guinea and myself. Someone mentioned drug use in the United States among the youth, and with a broad smile the Muslim businessman said, “We don’t have that problem in Guinea – if someone has drugs or guns they are executed.”

I looked at him calmly and said, “Yes, and if a Muslim converts to Christianity he is executed as well.” The Muslim’s smile turned quickly into a straight face, and his eyes filled with hatred. The Jewish couple, realizing they were in a hot tub with a man that would be willing to cut their throats if they were found in Guinea, quickly exited. Within a minute just the Muslim and I remained in the tub. He said to me, “We have freedom of worship in our nation and respect other religions.” He thought that I could be fooled as easily as former President George W. Bush or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That was not the case.

“Really,” I replied. “Tell me then why your president ordered the brutal torture, execution and mutilation of Pastor Michel Loua?” The reply from the Muslim was swift: “That was a special case. Those who are born Christians are not bothered.” He then smiled and said, “You should visit our nation.” I replied that I had visited most of Africa, including Sudan, on fact-finding missions, but given the fact that I valued my life I had no plans on visiting his nation any time soon. At that point the Muslim smiled, bid me good day and departed, leaving me alone in the whirlpool.

I had written about the execution of Pastor Michel Loua in 2010. In 2006 he and his family came to the United States so he could attend seminary in preparation to preach in Guinea. He graduated in 2009 with a master’s degree from Baptist Missionary Association Theological Seminary in Jacksonville, Texas. He and his family were members of the Rosewood Baptist Church, and in December 2008 he preached a revival there.

Loua returned to Guinea in June 2010 and was arrested within a few weeks. He was literally offered as a human sacrifice to “enhance” the leadership of the president. One news source said that “according to Guinea Muslim beliefs, it was necessary to kill an infidel (non-Muslim) to insure the new leadership’s success. Loua was reportedly tortured, shot through the heart and his body mutilated.”

Pastor Loua was born a Muslim and accepted Jesus as Savior at the age of 22. After his conversion he survived, among other things, a stoning by his Muslim relatives.

At the time of his death he had been married to Elisabeth for 15 years and had three children – a 14-year-old son and two daughters, aged 12 and 4. At the time of his murder by President Alpha Condé, his wife was expecting a fourth child.

Occasionally, my wife and I take a seven-day cruise in early December or January when the prices are about half off. The meeting above with the African businessman occurred on a medium-sized cruise ship in the Caribbean, and as a result I was to cross paths with him a couple of other times during the week, including once as he was seated with two of his wives for lunch.

I am very sure that a liberal columnist would have found the meeting in the whirlpool exhilarating and by now would have had an article at Huffpost touting the glamour of multi-multiculturalism and stating what a wonderful example the whirlpool experience had been.

I had a far different view because I knew that pastors like Michel Loua, and in some cases their families also, had been hacked to death in Africa simply because they were Christians. I had met a man in a hot tub who was enjoying Western culture while making his money selling aluminum ore to the West, and thereby enriching Islamic tyrants who are trying to spread their own revolting and murderous system. Pastor Loua is just one of countless innocent victims who, if they could, would warn us of the dangers of being too trusting of other cultures – even those that cannot and will not be tolerant of others.

Visit the website of the Michel Loua Foundation.

The annual breakfast yesterday drew more than 1,000 people, including many of the state’s leaders. In addition to McDonnell, others offering prayers included Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, House Speaker William Howell and state Democrat Chairwoman Charniele Herring.

McDonnell asked, during his prayer for Obama, that God give him “the wisdom of Solomon.”

The opening prayer was delivered by the mayor of Richmond, Dwight C. Jones, a Democrat. Jones, an African-American, sat next to Cuccinelli, a tea party favorite who currently is running for governor to replace McDonnell.

All those at the head table sat quietly as McDonnell prayed for Obama and his family. McDonnell prayed for Obama’s “wife Michelle and his two girls to have normalcy.” For Obama’s duties of office, the governor prayed that he would “get done what is right and just for the people.”

Speaking of all elected officials in the nation including himself, the governor asked God that “all do what is right in the eyes of God.”

It is not the first time McDonnell has advocated prayer for Obama.

Early in 2012, he told a Boy Scout troop to “pray for Mr. Obama, because he’s got a lot of hard decisions to make.”

That request came as the troop was on a tour of the Capitol that included a meeting with McDonnell.

S. Bernard Goodwyn, a justice on the Supreme Court of Virginia, asked God to direct all those who sit in judgment in the Commonwealth and in the nation to be just.

House Speaker William L. Howell introduced “those who would talk,” pointing out jokingly that there was “only one speaker in the House.” Before becoming speaker and while still a delegate, Howell formed a prayer group consisting of just four delegates, 16 years ago. One of those delegates is now the governor of Virginia and one is U. S. Congressman Randy Forbes.

Howell introduced the two main speakers for the prayer breakfast, the founders of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, Democrat Mike McIntyre of North Carolina and Forbes.

Taking the idea of a prayer meeting in the Congress a step further, the two men founded the Congressional Prayer Caucus, which now has more than 100 members. In his address, Howell recalled at the beginning just about every lawyer employed by the Congress showed up to explain why it could not happen.

When one asked him for a precedent, Forbes pointed to a painting of a prayer meeting held by the Continental Congress which drafted the Constitution.

Today the Congressional Prayer Caucus is an influential force.

When Forbes was informed that he could not include a copy of the Pledge of Allegiance when sending a flag flown over the Capitol to a constituent because it contained “under God,” his Prayer Caucus took action and forced a rule reversal.

When the new visitors’ center was built, the architect of the Capitol refused to place the nation’s official motto on the wall because of “separation of church and state.” The Prayer Caucus forced a reversal of that rule, and “In God We Trust” is now engraved in the wall of the center.

A protest was staged outside the event by homosexuals – even though many of the elected officials offering prayers for the nation were Democrats whose party favors a multitude of “gay rights.”

After the events, a group of activists associated with the Virginia Family Foundation marched around the Virginia Capitol Building praying for the assembled legislators.

A separate Presidential Inaugural Prayer Breakfast will be held Jan. 21 from 7-11 a.m. at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park hotel.

The master of ceremonies for the event that is expected to feature U.S. House Chaplain Father Patrick J. Conroy, “Harbinger” author Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Pat Robertson, Jan Crouch, Pat Boone, Joseph Farah, Sen. Roy Blunt and others, is state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, of Pennsylvania.

He has explained it is important to pray for Obama “and our Congress, and others in authority.”

The killing of young children at their school will be linked by many pundits to the availability of guns. Still others will blame the violent act on some pathology or childhood trauma. Some may even blame the Hollywood culture with its disregard for humanity, on which human bodies are seen being dissected  nightly on network TV. Virtually no one will call what occurred in Newtown an act of evil.

Probably not a single sermon will be preached in which the perpetrator is predicted to have begun his eternal punishment for his crime after judgment by a just and angry God. A splintered American church driven by a pew-hungry, feel-good message will offer assurances that eternal peace awaits all those who died, including the shooter. The words “hell” and “sin” will very likely not be used in any sermons associated with the massacre.

Yes, there is societal blame: Ridiculous privacy rules that allow the mentally ill to conceal their condition from schools, employers and gun-shop owners is just one. The constant esteem building in public schools teaching even low-functioning kids with anger problems to judge themselves equal to the valedictorian is yet another.

But the greatest villain is a church that has accepted the world’s view that hell does not await evildoers.

With a weak message from a weak church, there is no restraint or lessening of the violence. The shooting at Newtown was immediately followed by a shooting at a Birmingham, Ala., hospital and a Las Vegas hotel. Across the country, there are more than 16,000 murders each year. Of those, two-thirds are committed with guns. One in three murders is a very personal, vile act of evil using a knife, a blunt instrument or bare hands.

And the response of the church to this violence is “God loves you. Have a nice day.”

Adam Lanza had to shoot his way into the locked building. Public schools are not the soft targets many think they are. In more populated areas, there is virtually always an armed “safety officer” on duty because of the threat of student violence. Why?

My mother, atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, fought to make the public schools the armed camps they are today by removing prayer, the recognition of the authority of God. In 1962 and 1963, I was attending an all-boys public high school in downtown Baltimore, Md. The school was a magnet school before the term even existed and was intended to prepare young men for college, majoring in science and engineering. There were 1,800 teenage boys in the school, and there was not a cop in the building – ever. The doors were unlocked and often the un-air-conditioned rooms had open windows. There were no metal detectors, no picture IDs, and students went in and out the doors on the honor system.

What happens when you’re raised by America’s most famous atheist? Read William Murray’s riveting and redemptive new book, “My Life Without God”

The authority of God was present, even though I am very sure many of those young men, including myself, had some pretty vile thoughts that were not in the least way moral. The presence of the authority of God, vested in the teachers by His recognition every morning, was reinforced by the churches and the families of the students.

That high school has since merged with a girl’s school in another location, for purposes of political correctness. The last time I checked, the old building itself was the headquarters of the Baltimore City Schools Police Force, something that did not exist when Baltimore’s population was nearly double what it is now. Every kid at every school now has a photo ID. All the doors of every school are locked. All doors have metal detectors and drug-sniffing dogs roaming the corridors. I am told that every school in Baltimore has at least one armed “safety officer.”

In the vast majority of America’s public schools, the authority of God has been replaced with the authority of the iron fist of government. Morals? Without the authority of God, there are no morals, and none are taught in the public schools today. The ethics that are taught are situational, perhaps the same situational ethics that led to the logic that caused the tragic shootings in Newtown.

This condition exists in the schools and the society in general because of a failed church that is splintered and weak.

A large advertising sign near my home reads, “A church for those who don’t like church.” Translation: “No condemnation of sin here – we have coffee latte and great music.”

How about this politically incorrect sermon subject: “An angry God condemns the carnal sin of Adam Lanza, the Newton school shooter who killed 26, and he will rot in eternal torment in hell, as do all those who turn their backs on God and his goodness and continue their wicked and sinful ways.”

No way, no how in America today.

No number of gun-control laws can contain the evil that has been let loose in America. Not even black clad police with masks and automatic weapons can maintain social order in our out-of-control society. The nation needs a religious revival to steer it away from certain moral destruction. That revival will not come from feel-good, coffeehouse sermons that do not call sin what it is.

What are preachers today offering to “save” people from, if sin is never mentioned? What punishment are they being “saved” from, if hell is never mentioned?

The fear of an angry and vengeful God was far more likely to have stopped the shootings in Newtown than the warm voice of a psychologist or the soothing feeling of drugs.

Eternity in hell is a very long time.

One of the greatest revival sermons of all times was that of Jonathon Edwards – “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Can you imagine even this one portion being repeated in a church in America today: “There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Men’s hands cannot be strong when God rises up. The strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands. He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it.”

God is not in the business of saving evil nations from themselves, but He is in the business of offering salvation to individuals. A nation is saved from ruin when enough of its people turn from their wicked ways and follow His righteous commands.

The challenge is to the churches of every denomination to preach the true Word of God, the nature of sin and the consequences of perpetrating evil. This alone can turn the society from its violent and destructive path.