Fury erupts after lawmaker calls gays threat to U.S.

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Ron Jenkins, Associated Press

Saturday, March 15, 2008
"I honestly think [the homosexual agenda] is the biggest ...

(03-15) 04:00 PDT Oklahoma City - --

A YouTube audio clip of a state lawmaker's screed against homosexuality, which she called a bigger threat than terrorism, has outraged gay activists and brought death threats.

"The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation, OK, it's just a fact," Rep. Sally Kern said recently to a gathering of fellow Republicans outside the Capitol.

"Studies show no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted, you know, more than a few decades. So it's the death knell in this country.

"I honestly think it's the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat," she said.

The former schoolteacher has been a magnet for coast-to-coast condemnation, including a jab from comedian Ellen DeGeneres, ever since someone posted her comments on the Internet last week. State police said they are investigating death threats against her.

Back home in the Bible Belt, though, the response has been mixed. Kern has gotten support from her fellow Republicans.

"I would submit to you that the vast majority of the folks in our caucus, particularly those who consider themselves conservative, stand with and support Sally," said state Rep. Randy Terrill.

Democratic Gov. Brad Henry, however, said Kern's views are not representative of most Oklahomans. He said politicians should "think before you speak."

"To have equated the gay community with terrorism ... and to have called us the biggest threat to America is to dehumanize gay people in the worst possible way," Denis Dison, spokesman for the Washington-based Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, said Friday.

That group's leaders fear that remarks such as Kern's coming from an elected official could lead to violence against gays.

Kern, who is finishing her second term, has tried unsuccessfully to pass bills to rid libraries' children's sections of books that have homosexual themes. She told the group that schoolchildren are being indoctrinated by gay activists.

"We're not teaching facts and knowledge any more, folks," she said. "We're teaching indoctrination, OK, and they are going after our young children, as young as 2 years of age, to try to teach them a homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle."

In the same speech, she said gays are "infiltrating city councils" across the country.

Kern said she made her comments on about four different occasions to small groups of Republicans, and she thinks the recording was made at one of these meetings in January. Various recordings of it have generated more than a million hits on YouTube.

Kern's office received more than 23,000 e-mails in less than a week, mostly condemning her views, and thousands more to her home computer, many of them "vulgar, vile and profane," she said.

Kern said she has no regrets for her statements and denies she was gay-bashing. Her Christian faith teaches her to be loving to individuals, but not their lifestyle, she said.

Some people, including DeGeneres, did not take her remarks that way.

"Hi, it's Ellen DeGeneres, the gay one," the comedian said when she left a message in a call to Kern's office during her TV show this week. DeGeneres said she wanted to talk to Kern about some "misinformation."

Kern said she had no interest in talking to the entertainer. "That would be like throwing myself into the lion's den, and I'm not going to do that," she said.

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The following is the transcript of a speech on the subject of Islam given by Jim Horn, vice Chairman of the United American Committee, to a group of Republican women in Southern California on Tuesday March 18th 2008. During and after his speech Jim was met with thunderous applause.

Note: The contents of this speech may not necessarily reflect official policies of the UAC.

We are not at war with terrorism. Terrorism is a tool

Who’s attacking us? Is it Japanese? British? Hawaiians? Canadians? Israelis? Koreans? Brazilians? Icelanders? No, it’s Moslems. Islamists

We are definitely at war with Islam, and our very survival is at stake. More importantly, that of our children and grand-children.

To quote former British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill: “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”

Things haven’t changed.

Those attacking us are not special “fundamentalist” or “radical” Moslems.

They are just honest Moslems like bin Laden, Khomeni, Ahmadinejad, emulating the prototype Moslem terrorist, Mohammed, and doing what his Koran tells them to do.

They want to terrorize us into submission.

And

We are not doing too well!

We’ve let the anti-God crowd (led by the ACLU) kick God out of our schools. Now, they are ushering Allah in. Islam is an evil, bigoted cult!

Moslems are working to make us submit (the Arabic word is Islam) - to becoming Moslems or accepting dhimmitude - which is being inferior to them, of eroding our will to resist.

The real meaning of being a Moslem, of accepting Islam is the willful acceptance of perpetual ignorance, humiliation, poverty, disease, suffering, self-loathing and abuse, hatred of women and sub-human existence.

The cult of Islam is an implacable foe -- this seems to elude many of our leaders.
They foolishly parrot Islamist taqiyyah - lying, balderdash, propaganda that Islam is a religion of peace, that Islam is not the enemy. B.S.!

Here is a fundamental truth: The only peace that Islam recognizes is peace under the domination of Islam. Nothing else!

Any ignoramus who believes otherwise is a simple minded dhimmi fool. This applies to those who believe in so-called moderate Moslems. A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up.

Islam’s assault is smart and determined. We can never underestimate their determination - which is to subdue and control us completely.

Our leaders can’t get a grip on it. – they’re befuddled. They are willfully ignorant dhimmis.

The Moslems are employing a multi-pronged attack:

Militarily, it‘s jihad: They are shooting us, blowing us up, cutting our throats.

With no identifiable central military command and control structure, our generals are befuddled and don’t know where to blow things up.

Islam’s goal - is to weaken us. We are NOT succeeding in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Djibouti, Indonesia, the Philippines, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, the Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Kenya, Turkey, Bosnia, Kosovo, nor anywhere else. Our finest are dying every day. And we are putting some of them in military prisons for defending our country! This is a travesty.

Moslems have blown up embassies, airplanes, the USS Cole, the Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia, our Marines in Beirut, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered Americans all over, they took hostages in Tehran, and did 9/11.
Why? Who are we?

We are the lynchpin of civilization, of what is basically good, decent, and civilized.

The Moslems know that if we fall, so will go the rest of civilization.

The A-bomb terrorized the Japanese into quitting.

We crushed the Nazis.

We didn’t use the A-bomb in Korea, and were beaten back to the 38th parallel where it began.

We didn’t use all of our force in Vietnam and were handed our own butts in defeat.

We are now giving the Moslems a silver platter on which they will hand our sorry butts back to us.

We are trying to fight by our rules
- Moslems won‘t comply.
- Therefore our rules don’t apply.

We need to adopt some of their rules.

- Or make new rules.

ECONOMICALLY and SUBLIMINALLY, or CULTURALLY they are on a roll.

They control our energy - oil.
- They charge us billions -- and we pay, and we pay.

Our dollars buy every bullet, grenade, rocket, land mine (IED), etc. that kills an American. Yankee dollars to kill Yankee soldiers!

They are taking control of us.
- They buy and control our stocks
- They are buying our media -- and have silenced Bill O’Reilley who used to go after Saudi Sheikh’s.
- Saudis now own 15% of FOX and effectively sign his pay check. Saudis are off limits. A diminished O’Reilley rants about Rosie, gays, illegals, and pedophiles -
he’s become a tabloid denizen like Jeraldo and Jerry. FOX is now even servile towards Moslim Arabs.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has gone after Michael Savage in a big way in their efforts to censor or to subdue him. Unlike O’Reilley, Savage is courageously fighting back. Mark Steyn, a Canadian is facing charges of hate speech brought on by his forthright and honest writings about Islam and Moslems (America Alone). The ones bringing those charges are the Canadian equivalent of CAIR, the Canadian Islamic Congress.

This is a form of terrorism. It‘s Arabic word is HIRABAH.

Hirabah is a form of public terrorism and intimidation in an assault on a society - the targeting of people in a way to cause fear, anxiety, terror. It is the threat of legal or other intimidation against anyone who speaks out against Moslems. The way to overcome this is for thousands and thousands of us to go out and express ourselves, to speak in ways --(the simple truth will do)-- that offend Moslems, so much so that they will be overwhelmed by our exercising our rights of free expression.

We did not start this war, but we have no choice in engaging in it, or perish. It’s that simple. Each and every one of is involved like it or not. During WWII in occupied Europe, nearly all of the noncombatant men, children, and women joined in the resistance in one way or another, and this helped our troops to succeed. We need to start our own resistance - NOW.

Their surrogates control our energy sector via corporate boardrooms. - They have set de facto limits to alternative energy. - They are determined to keep us dependent on their oil. The recent energy bill has eliminated incentives for renewable solar power, and Bush signed off on it.

The dysfunctional Department of Energy responds more to Arabs than to us.

France is 85% nuclear powered, as is Germany. Japan is 90% nuclear powered. We’re barely at ten percent. We have let this happen. We are but a banana republic, dependent on others. We need to reverse this.

We need to build lots of nuclear power plants. NOW! We can use power from nuclear energy to extract our own oil -- we reportedly have an 800 year supply of that stuff located in our tar sands and oil bearing shale.

We have coal. Let’s use it. We have technology to clean it up, and we can even harvest gasoline from coal.

The Moslem political lobby – invests billions in us.
- They buy/bribe politicians in every way -- and they are able to pre-determine votes, something you can‘t do.

We need to do something about that. NOW! We need to confront corrupt politicians.

Ask them where their money comes from, their donations, about straw donors. Pin them down. Embarrass them. Humble them. Make them give up that dirty money.

The Moslems have spent decades and billions to study and to learn about us and how we function.
- They have learned how to take advantage of our goodness, of our kindness, of our decency, and thus how to take us over.

--- We have become so tolerant that we tolerate the intolerant. ((repeat)) This must stop.

- They know our laws better than we do - how to subvert us.
- They have thousands of bankers and lawyers increasingly in control our way of life. They are taking over our stock exchanges, and establishing rules that keep investments in Israel and other civilized (anti-Arab) nations down.

They are now buying into financially troubled banks, and then demanding that an approved Imam -- a Moslem “priest” be put on the board to assure that financial products offered to Moslems are ‘halal’ -- kosher. Halal finances are interest free loans and credit cards for Moslems, while you and I pay higher and higher interest on our credit cards.

Those of us who invest, need to go out and invest directly in non-Arab controlled companies to get around and to thwart the Arabs.

They have infiltrated our government
- Our leadership hasn’t figured this out - the depth and breadth of this.
- Hostile agents are active in our intelligence and security organizations. One Palestinian/Hezbollah operative has been found out.
- Moslems in high places thwart loyal Arabic speakers who are Jewish or Christian from getting translator or other jobs.
- They make sure top officials do NOT know what they ought or need to know.
-They got Stephen Coughlin, a top pentagon expert on Islamic Law and Moslem extremism fired for being too honest and good at his job. This is one of the worst outrages coming at us.
So many of us raised so much hell, that the Moslem who orchestrated this was ousted himself for being a liar.
--And Coughlin has a new contract.

- They, in fact so believe their taqiyyah BS and balderdash (it’s not just OK, but actually good to lie to non-Muslims) that they have a mindset that can defeat lie detector tests relied on by the CIA, the FBI & others. They will lie at all costs to achieve their evil goals.

Politicians in New York recently pass a bill to outlaw libel lawsuits against people who exercise free speech. This in response to a Saudi suing people like you and I in European courts. We need one of these laws here, in California now, and need to demand that the Congress enact one also.

I am concerned that if I were to become knowledgeable about something terrible, I am not confident that I could report it to the FBI and that it would be handled properly. In fact, I have had some recent information come to me and I worked on different ways to get that information into the hands of people who will handle it correctly.

Just recently, a former (she blew the whistle and that’s why she is a “former“) FBI translator disclosed the extent of anti-American spying activities by increasingly sectarian Moslem Turkey. An American diplomat was involved.

This war for our survival dates to 570 when Muhammad was born, orphaned, grew up, hustled a rich widow and began his quest for power. He tried to do it peacefully by pretending to be Christ like, and failed His philosophy turned into the evil cult that we know of today as Islam.

The greedy and gullible pagans and others were drawn into his cult which is based on lust and greed.

Islam’s guide is the Koran, a confusing and conflicting compilation of utterances that Mohammed claimed came from his god, Allah.

The Koran is organized by the longest “revelations” first. There is no chronology, no thread to follow. It is confusing to read and to understand or grasp.

Mohammed established the rule of Koranic abrogation.
-Whatever his Allah reveled today can be overruled in later revelations - a very fickle Allah.

Present day Moslems spouting the peace and love spiel are doing the BS and balderdash taqiyyah thing. They are liars -- being true to Islam.
- The fools who fall for this easily are
- our clergy, educators, and politicians and ignorant fools..

Qur’an is the religious side of the cult of Islam
- Is the basis of the vile Shari laws (which boil down to the most crude forms of laws of the jungle and the survival of the fittest or most savage) and Moslem kangaroo courts.

Mohammed’s Hadiths - rules and traditions all based on Mohammed’s greedy, lustful, brutal, savage, corrupt life, his style, governs how Moslems are supposed to live. Moslems try to emulate Mohammed in every way.

For example, Mohammed married Aisha (one of about twelve wives) when she was six.
So, Islam permits baby marriages which really encourages pedophilia.

Mohammed had a dozen wives and many slaves, so Islam permits polygamy, many wives and slaves.

The Department of State in 2007 documented (not rumors, but confirmations) over 800,000 cases of human trafficking as they call it - slave trading. Where? 99% in Moslem countries.

Women under Islam are chattel. Mohammed rules recommend beating wives to keep them in line, and taught that women are inferior, just to be used.
- They can only inherit ½ of men.
- Their testimony does not equal that of a man.
- A complaint of rape is thus a confession to having gender out of wedlock --- the woman can therefore be stoned to death for adultery.
- This is Shari’a law -- what Moslem outfits like the Council on Islamic Relations (CAIR) want to impose right here, in the USA.

Mohammed’s step-son married a beautiful woman whom Mohammed lusted after so much that he divorced her and gave her to Mohammed. She didn’t have a choice.

Murdered Lebanese prime Minister Rafik Harriri was made a billionaire by a Saudi prince, and then became Prime Minister. Harriri divorced his stunningly gorgeous wife whom the Saudi lusted after, and gave her to the Saudi. Harriri was rewarded with tons of money. She had no choice.

When Mohammed and his band conquered one village, he decreed the torture and death of every male, about 900. After pouring boiling liquid down their throats, they were mutilated and then had their heads cut off.

“Islamist extremists” are merely honest Moslems emulating Mohammed. Osama bin Laden is a disciple of Mohammed. Is bin Laden dishonest? No. He is a near perfect Moslem.

“Honor” killings are a common practice, and this practice is being imported. A Man in Toronto strangled his daughter because she wanted to fit into the greater society. An Egyptian murdered his two daughters in Dallas because they resisted their assigned roles of being inferior.

Mohammed promised rewards for the “faithful” which includes paradise for those who die in jihad (such as suicide bombers). In paradise they are promised 72 ever-virgin maidens and 28 tender pre-pubescent boys….., as well as other pleasures.

There are no similar rewards for women.

Islam is much harsher than Communism or Nazism, both of which someone could resign from and still live. If one leaves Islam, they are condemned to death. Islam is just plain evil. And, it’s been around for 1400 years.

Moslems call critics racists. Not so. Islam is an evil fascist system, not a race. Islam is a totalarian cult, and includes members of all races and colors, as are we, its many critics.

We can critically study Christ and Judaism but Islam forbids anything critical about Mohammed or Allah. Ask serious questions, criticize or mock Mohammed and you are condemned as was Salmon Rushdie, the Danish cartoonists depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his bonnet, Theo Van Gogh who was murdered, and anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders who has made a truthful documentary on Islam and the Koran.

Fascist Islam / Moslems can’t stand the comparison – or competition.

They can’t tolerate freedom of speech.

The UN - Useless Nations - has passed a resolution condemning anti-Moslem/anti-Islam speech -- our exercising our rights under the First Amendment to our Constitution. The Useless Nations hates freedoms set forth in our Constitution, including the one that protects the First Amendment, the Second Amendment allowing us to be armed citizens able to organize and to resist anyone who wants to suppress us, our freedoms - our constitution.

Democracy and Islam are NOT and will NEVER, EVER be compatible.

Qur’an forbids making friends with Christians or Jews. It is against their laws. Mohammed forbade it.

If a Moslem says he is your friend, he is lying - taqiyyah.

Where do we go from here?

Establish reciprocity laws. Reciprocity is NOT discriminatory - it is all about fairness and equality. STOP any more Islamic centers, schools, mosques. Demand they reciprocate and allow building of and protect churches in all Moslem countries until equal status -- parity -- is reached. STOP allowing any more Moslems into USA, until they have attracted several million Christians from the USA and Europe to set up and live freely in their countries.

Severely restrict all Moslem diplomats’ movements.

In Moslem countries, any foreigner who wishes to do business, must put up all of the money, engage a Moslem (citizen) as a partner holding 51% of the assets and earning 51% of the profits. If the company does too well, it can be nationalized, and the foreigner given the boot. Do the same with all Moslem/Arab businesses here.

Soft societies lose to hard societies. Harden up or perish - vanish.

We have power.

We need to use our power. Use our food for oil, medicine for oil, pills for oil, clothes for oil, airplanes for oil, cars and trucks for oil, machinery for oil, technology for oil, education for oil, and more. Put a commodity value on everything. Make them pay.

We have the A-bomb. We need to let them know that we can use it. We need to re-establish our Neutron bomb program.

We need to terrorize and dominate those who wish to destroy us, to make them back off, or kill them if they won‘t.

Cancel all foreign assistance - taxpayer dollars to Moslem countries who fail to fully reciprocate with us. We’ll cut about twenty billion out of our budget in a day when we do that.

Intolerant Islam – submission is not compatible with freedom. -- Freedom is being civilized.

Now, I’d like to say a few words about Russia and China.

The Russians are recovering from Yeltsinism and the Chinese from Maoism.

Flush with cash, the Chinese are building a military force that can challenge the United States, or any other nation. They have tested a satellite destroyer weapon, to demonstrate that they can cripple us.

The Russians are increasingly belligerent towards the United States. Some of you may ask why, and I give you this. In Russia’s involvement in Afghanistan, we sided against the Russians, and supported the Moslems. In Russia’s conflict with Moslem Chechniya, we sided with the Moslems. When Islamists started the ethnic cleansing in Serbia’s Kosovo province, we sided with the Moslems.

Russia and China have active intelligence services which are very aggressive in Washington and other parts of the country. They study us closely, and know very well what is going on.

The Russians and Serbs share much of their heritage in common. We have hurt them badly. We have caused the deaths of thousands and thousands of Christian Russians and Serbs, cost them a fortune, and territory. We have earned their enmity.

If Mexicans - MeCHA, Aztlan, la Raza gangs started military type activity to establish their own anti-American government here, and our police were bombed by Russia for trying to stop them, how would you feel?

The Russians and Chinese both see that we Americans may allow the Islamists more and more until they slyly take us over. They see themselves having to face an Islamist controlled nuclear armed North America. When that happens, they intend to win!

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By PETER HOEKSTRA
March 26, 2008; Page A15

The Netherlands is bracing for a new round of violence at home and against its embassies in the Middle East. The storm would be caused by "Fitna," a short film that is scheduled to be released this week. The film, which reportedly includes images of a Quran being burned, was produced by Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament and leader of the Freedom Party. Mr. Wilders has called for banning the Quran -- which he has compared to Hitler's "Mein Kampf" -- from the Netherlands.

After concern about the film led Mr. Wilders's Internet service provider to take down his Web site, Mr. Wilders issued a statement this week that he will personally distribute DVDs "On the Dam" if he has to. That may not be necessary, as the Czech National Party has reportedly agreed to host the video on its Web site.
[Islam and Free Speech]
Marked for death: Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Reasonable men in free societies regard Geert Wilders's anti-Muslim rhetoric, and films like "Fitna," as disrespectful of the religious sensitivities of members of the Islamic faith. But free societies also hold freedom of speech to be a fundamental human right. We don't silence, jail or kill people with whom we disagree just because their ideas are offensive or disturbing. We believe that when such ideas are openly debated, they sink of their own weight and attract few followers.

Our country allows fringe groups like the American Nazi Party to demonstrate, as long as they are peaceful. Americans are permitted to burn the national flag. In 1989, when so-called artist Andres Serrano displayed his work "*censored* Christ" -- a photo of a crucifix immersed in a bottle of urine -- Americans protested peacefully and moved to cut off the federal funding that supported Mr. Serrano. There were no bombings of museums. No one was killed over this work that was deeply offensive to Christians.

Criticism of Islam, however, has led to violence and murder world-wide. Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie over his 1988 book, "The Satanic Verses." Although Mr. Rushdie has survived, two people associated with the book were stabbed, one fatally. The 2005 Danish editorial cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad led to numerous deaths. Dutch director Theodoor van Gogh was killed in 2004, several months after he made the film "Submission," which described violence against women in Islamic societies. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch member of parliament who wrote the script for "Submission," received death threats over the film and fled the country for the United States.

The violence Dutch officials are anticipating now is part of a broad and determined effort by the radical jihadist movement to reject the basic values of modern civilization and replace them with an extreme form of Shariah. Shariah, the legal code of Islam, governed the Muslim world in medieval times and is used to varying degrees in many nations today, especially in Saudi Arabia.

Radical jihadists are prepared to use violence against individuals to stop them from exercising their free speech rights. In some countries, converting a Muslim to another faith is a crime punishable by death. While Muslim clerics are free to preach and proselytize in the West, some Muslim nations severely restrict or forbid other faiths to do so. In addition, moderate Muslims around the world have been deemed apostates and enemies by radical jihadists.

Radical jihadists believe representative government is un-Islamic, and urge Muslims who live in democracies not to exercise their right to vote. The reason is not hard to understand: When given a choice, most Muslims reject the extreme approach to Islam. This was recently demonstrated in Iraq's Anbar Province, which went from an al-Qaeda stronghold to an area supporting the U.S.-led coalition. This happened because the populace came to intensely dislike the fanatical ways of the radicals, which included cutting off fingers of anyone caught smoking a cigarette, 4 p.m. curfews, beatings and beheadings. There also were forced marriages between foreign-born al Qaeda fighters and local Sunni women.

There may be a direct relationship between the radical jihadists' opposition to democracy and their systematic abuse of women. Women have virtually no rights in this radical world: They must conceal themselves, cannot hold jobs, and have been subjected to honor killings. Would most women in Muslim countries vote for a candidate for public office who supported such oppressive rules?

Not all of these radicals are using violence to supplant democratic society with an extreme form of Shariah. Some in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark are attempting to create parallel Islamic societies with separate courts for Muslims. According to recent press reports, British officials are investigating the cases of 30 British Muslim school-age girls who "disappeared" for probable forced marriages.

While efforts to create parallel Islamic societies have been mostly peaceful, they may actually be a jihadist "waiting game," based on the assumption that the Islamic populations of many European states will become the majority over the next 25-50 years due to higher Muslim birth rates and immigration.

What is particularly disturbing about these assaults against modern society is how the West has reacted with appeasement, willful ignorance, and a lack of journalistic criticism. Last year PBS tried to suppress "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center," a hard-hitting documentary that contained criticism of radical jihadists. Fortunately, Fox News agreed to air the film.

Even if the new Wilders film proves newsworthy, it is likely that few members of the Western media will air it, perhaps because they have been intimidated by radical jihadist threats. The only major U.S. newspaper to reprint any of the controversial 2005 Danish cartoons was Denver's Rocky Mountain News. You can be sure that if these cartoons had mocked Christianity or Judaism, major American newspapers would not have hesitated to print them.

European officials have been similarly cautious. A German court ruled last year that a German Muslim man had the right to beat his wife, as this was permitted under Shariah. Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, stated last month that the implementation of some measure of Shariah in Britain was "unavoidable" and British Muslims should have the choice to use Shariah in marital and financial matters.

I do not defend the right of Geert Wilders to air his film because I agree with it. I expect I will not. (I have not yet seen the film). I defend the right of Mr. Wilders and the media to air this film because free speech is a fundamental right that is the foundation of modern society. Western governments and media outlets cannot allow themselves to be bullied into giving up this precious right due to threats of violence. We must not fool ourselves into believing that we can appease the radical jihadist movement by allowing them to set up parallel societies and separate legal systems, or by granting them special protection from criticism.

A central premise of the American experiment are these words from the Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." There are similar statements in the U.S. Constitution, British Common Law, the Napoleonic Code and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. As a result, hundreds of millions in the U.S. and around the world enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and many other rights.

These liberties have been won through centuries of debate, conflict and bloodshed. Radical jihadists want to sacrifice all we have learned by returning to a primitive and intolerant world. While modern society invites such radicals to peacefully exercise their faith, we cannot and will not sacrifice our fundamental freedoms.

Mr. Hoekstra, who was born in the Netherlands, is ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.