Tolerance is a one-way street when it comes to the OIC.
(CNS News) — The Obama administration says a meeting in Washington next week seeks to make progress in combating religious intolerance, but critics say the U.S. is pandering to an ideological agenda aimed at restricting speech critical of Islam.
According to the State Department the aim is to find ways to combat religious hate without compromising freedom of expression. Detractors are skeptical that this can be done, and they suspect that free speech will end up the loser.
Among those criticizing the event are GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, the Traditional Values Coalition, and scholars at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.
The State Department-hosted meeting is the latest step in a process stemming from a resolution on “combating intolerance based on religion,” adopted by consensus at the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) last March. […]
Former House speaker and Republican presidential hopeful Gingrich also voiced concern.
“Just days after chastising Israel for ‘unfair’ treatment of women, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will welcome a Saudi-based Islamist group, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to Washington for a conference on ‘tolerance,’” he wrote in a Human Events column on Wednesday. “Far from a tolerant organization, however, a primary mission of the OIC is to restrict free speech critical of Islam.”