{"id":180,"date":"2009-06-03T16:19:12","date_gmt":"2009-06-03T16:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/probably-not-best-time-for-lec.html"},"modified":"2009-06-03T16:19:12","modified_gmt":"2009-06-03T16:19:12","slug":"probably-not-best-time-for-lec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/probably-not-best-time-for-lec.html","title":{"rendered":"Probably Not the Best Time For Lectures In Mideast"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you know, Jay, I am not unsympathetic to the plight of the many of the people you represent around the world.  There are strong human rights arguments to be made in asylum cases in Europe–and frankly strong ones to be made in the United States as well.<\/p>\n

However, tomorrow’s speech by the President in Cairo<\/a> is probably not the time or place to highlight with great specificity religious persecution in the Islamic world.  I would expect him to do what he did in Turkey earlier this year: explain that the United States is committed to democracy and religious freedom and expect those principles to be exemplars to the rest of the world.  The President noted<\/a> at that time: “I’ve said before that one of the great strengths of the United States is- although as I mentioned we have a very large Christian population- we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation.  We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I know that some on the Right<\/a> did not like the President’s comments, because they do think this is a Christian nation, which of course it is not.<\/p>\n

The Cairo speech is likely to be conciliatory (not apologetic) because as most people are starting to realize again: we are still at war in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The President cannot be expected to give a lecture on how every Islamic nation should immediately amend their constitutions to read like the First Amendment in the United States.  He cannot give the impression that his goal is to demand the impostion of democracy, American-style immediately throughout the Middle East.<\/p>\n

If I ran a “one world government” (don’t worry, I’m not running and it is not happening), I’d be insisting on a program of political, religious and economic rights that go far beyond that found in any country.  However, President Obama has a complex set of political and military considerations which for the moment must be balanced against criticisms of current rights policies.<\/p>\n

To subscribe to “Lynn v. Sekulow” click <\/font>here<\/font><\/a>.<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you know, Jay, I am not unsympathetic to the plight of the many of the people you represent around the world.  There are strong human rights arguments to be made in asylum cases in Europe–and frankly strong ones to be made in the United States as well. However, tomorrow’s speech by the President in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,123,4,162],"tags":[164,165,51,67,393,91,163],"class_list":["post-180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-law","category-president-barack-obama","category-religious-freedom","category-religious-persecurtion","tag-cairo","tag-democracy","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-president-barack-obama","tag-religious-freedom-2","tag-turkey"],"yoast_head":"\nProbably Not the Best Time For Lectures In Mideast - Lynn v. 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Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}