Powell Attacks Christian Right
Oliver Burkeman in New York
The Guardian UK

Friday, 15 November, 2002

Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, condemned America's Christian right 
yesterday for propagating hatred against Muslims, in what appeared to be a 
coordinated White House campaign to confront anti-Islamic rhetoric from a 
constituency that includes some of the Bush administration's staunchest 
supporters.

Days after the televangelist Pat Robertson said on his Christian 
Broadcasting Network that "what the Muslims want to do to the Jews is worse" 
than the Holocaust, Mr Powell told a gathering in Washington: "This kind of 
hatred must be rejected."

The escalation in anti-Muslim comments from conservative Christians includes 
a recent claim by Jerry Falwell, the country's leading rightwing Baptist, 
that the prophet Mohammed was "a terrorist".

Veteran evangelist Jimmy Swaggart followed that this week by calling 
Mohammed a "sex deviant" and a pervert and demanding that Muslim students in 
the US be expelled. "We ought to tell every other Muslim living in this 
nation that if you say one word, you're gone," he said.

As the likelihood grows of a war in Iraq there are strategic benefits for 
the White House in convincing Muslims that it would not be a war against 
their religion.

The administration's increased willingness to confront the Christian right 
reflects the Republicans' sweeping victories in last week's mid-term 
elections, reducing Mr Bush's reliance on the extreme fringes of his 
supporter base.






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