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Poor, poor Christians! All that scoffing and persecution! Of course, persecution is nothing that Native Americans would understand:

In a speech on Tuesday at John Brown University, a private Christian college in Siloam Springs, Ark., the son of the revered evangelist Billy Graham voiced "dismay" at the way the Tucson memorial service was conducted, arguing that it was not as explicitly religious -- mainly "Christian" -- as those following the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 attacks.

Graham was particularly upset that the Tucson memorial featured a Native American who called upon "father sky and mother earth."

"There was no call for the name of God to put his loving arms around the people who were hurting, the people that were suffering," Graham said. "Why? Why did they take God out of it? Why did they leave him out?

"Because the world scoffs at the name of Jesus Christ," Graham said, his voice rising in anger. "They scoff when you say he's the son of God."

Graham went on to say that the scoffing and persecution against Christians is only going to get worse.

Initial reports of Graham's speech indicated that he may have been including Obama in his critique, though a review of the video shows that Graham says he "felt sorry" for the president "because I knew he was uncomfortable in that situation."

Graham was referring to the pep rally atmosphere and the prayers by the Native American, an associate professor of medicine at the University, Carlos Gonzales, who is a Pascua Yaqui Indian and fifth generation Arizonan. (Graham called him a native of "the Yuppie tribe or something, I didn't quite get it.")

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation just stopped a similar event with Graham in April. Sounds like someone's hoping to force the issue again:

An evangelistic rally jointly sponsored by U.S. military personnel and evangelical Christian churches and ministries violates the U.S. Constitution and must be cancelled, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The “Rock the Fort” event at Fort Bragg this weekend targets both military personnel and adults and children in the surrounding community for conversion to Christianity. This clearly violates the separation of church and state, attorneys with Americans United informed Army officials in in a letter today.

“It’s not the Army’s job to convert Americans to Christianity,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “This event is totally unacceptable and must be canceled.

“It is particularly shocking that the military would join forces with Franklin Graham,” Lynn continued. “Graham has expressed utter contempt for Islam, Hinduism and other faiths. When our military joins hands with him, it sends exactly the wrong message to the world. Our military defends a nation that includes people of many different faiths and some who follow no faith at all.”

“Rock the Fort” is being sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) in conjunction with Fort Bragg chaplains and local churches. The current CEO of the Graham Association is Franklin Graham.

In addition to evangelizing soldiers, officials at Fort Bragg have invited members of the surrounding community to attend the Sept. 25 event, which will feature Christian music and sermonizing. Special emphasis will be placed on evangelizing children.

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Christiane Armanpour should be applauded for providing a much-needed public service this week: A public airing of the many misconceptions and outright lies about Islam, and the opportunity for Muslims to make a spirited defense.

Participants include 9/11 families from both sides of the fence, moderate and radical Muslims and fundamentalist Christian Franklin Graham.

For once, I'm not going to excerpt the transcript because I really do want people to read the whole thing -- and hear the many, many points raised by the participants.

This show will enlighten just about anyone who reads or sees it, and I can only hope the most ill-informed people who really need this information will be open to it.

Transcript follows:

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