Nothing To See Here. Move On.

We have been told ad nauseam that the Obama administration’s policies are not anti-religion. We have seen that same administration intrude into the religious arena time and again, most recently when it came to denying religious exemptions for those who want no part of abortion or radical birth control (abortifacients, also know as “morning-after pills).

That has resulted in nationwide lawsuits against Obamacare mandates. But let’s look outside for a few minutes. Despite Congressional requirements, the US Department of State in May released the annual Country Reports on Human Rights without any mention whatsoever of religious oppression overseas. Continuing its defiance of Congress and its denial of the realities of Middle East Islamist oppression, the State Department simply deleted the required section on religious freedom from its report. There was method to their madness.

The administration’s fecklessness during the “Arab Spring” and fast-developing strife throughout northern Africa and the Middle East would be exposed if the truth were told with current information. So instead of including the required section on religious freedom, the Report “covered” it by referring to the 2010 International Religious Freedom Report (IRFR) and the 2010 US Commission on International Religious Freedom Report (USCIRFR). Talk about a day late and a dollar short. This is two years late, and thousands of deaths short.

The Country Report is supposed to include an up-to-date section on religious freedom and religious oppression each year since the law was enacted in 1998. But the 2012 Report would have been the first which could not ignore what is really happening in those Muslim nations which have had uprisings, revolutions and changes of government which have occurred over the past year. The Report is supposed to include a country-by-country accounting of what is good and bad in each nation that the State Department is reporting on.

This means that despite massive changes in government control in Libya and Egypt and ongoing blood-letting in Syria, where it comes to development in religions other than Islam, the Report is so out-of-date as to be meaningless. Moreover, the administration has defended its position by saying that “human rights” and religious freedom are basically the same concepts, and human rights were covered in the Report. That is the position taken by those who want complete control over every facet of life and consider religion an impediment to their agenda. Worst of all, the Report didn’t even adequately cover human rights violations which are now rampant throughout the two regions.

Religious freedom is a far smaller concern to the Obama administration than other human rights, particularly since the oppressors are Islamists and the victims Christians and Jews. The Report doesn’t even cover the conflicts between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, which seem to make things even worse. Issues such as global women’s issues have been addressed over and over, but the US official charged with protecting and reporting on religious liberty has only been in her office a couple of times in three and a half years, while the ambassador-at-large for women’s issues began working feverishly the day after Barack Obama was inaugurated.

As I mentioned above, the 2010 USCIRF Report is totally out-of-date, as is the IRFR. But nevertheless, those were the reports the State Department’s 2012 Report cited. Odd, since both the 2012 IRFR Report and the USCIRFR, which were not cited, include such tidbits as the massacre in 2011 of twenty-five Coptic Christians in Egypt during a jihadist attack on a church, and the ongoing slaughter of Christians by the Islamist thug army Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Scolder-in-Chief Obama has wagged his naughty-naughty finger at some of the goings-on during the Arab Spring, But he saved his mild admonitions for human rights and women’s rights violations. When it comes to religious freedom, he just doesn’t see a serious problem and stands by his lofty praise of Middle East tyrannies and Islam made during his Cairo speech back toward the beginning of his presidency. He has put zero pressure on either the old or new governments to protect religions other than Islam.

While bending over to kiss the hem of the Saudi king’s royal robe, Obama may have whispered “could you please be a little less harsh on women?” but nary a word about the oppression and murder of Christians, Jews and pagans throughout northern Africa and the Middle East. If you want to know what’s really going on with religious freedom in those regions, don’t rely on the US State Department to give you accurate and current information.