Senator Rand Paul , Republican from Kentucky, delivered a 19-minute speech about the “worldwide war on Christianity” in Washington on Friday. While some social conservatives might think about such a “war” in terms of birth control or same-sex marriage, Paul chose to focus on Muslims. In his speech Paul claims as many as “100 million” Muslims around the world are actively fighting a violent war directed at Christians.
Senator Rand Paul gave his presentation in front of a crowd gathered for the annual Values Voters Summit , according to the Washington Post . Paul began by remaking that Christianity was under attack “from Boston to Zanzibar.” These assaults are so frequent that it was “almost as if we lived in the Middle Ages.”
Senator Paul points to both Boston and Zanzibar to prove his point. He claims that though, between the two isolated incidents, there were four Muslims involved, this shows that tens of millions of Muslims around the world are aiming to attack Christians. The Boston Marathon bombing, Paul says, was just another calculated move by a worldwide Muslim force trying to destroy Christianity.
However, Senator Rand Paul’s claims lack the numbers to back them up. As The Daily Beast points out, at least eight in ten victims killed by terrorist attacks worldwide are actually Muslims themselves . The Tsarnaevs’ motives and actions do not support Paul’s claims, as they targeted athletes and spectators from dozens of countries and religious backgrounds, not a Christian church.
While Paul says that this so-called “war on Christianity” does not necessarily need a “large conventional war” to be fought, Christians everywhere “should be prepared for war.” But Paul adds that people should “pray for peace” while waiting for “Islam to police Islam.”
Despite his rallying cry, Senator Paul failed to rouse the passions of Value Voters. In a straw poll Rand Paul came in fourth overall, with Cruz taking the lead.
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