“This month’s riots in the immigrant ghettos outside Paris are only the latest manifestation of a continent in decline. Expressly, Europe has abandoned its culture. Thus, it has lost the means by which to assimilate Muslims who have shown no inclination to emulate those who seek American citizenship and accept the pluralistic values our country represents…. A proper analysis of Great Britain’s attempts at integration of Muslims is far too great a task for a newspaper column, but the behavior of the mayor of that country’s capitol city is cause for distress.
“On first glance, London’s gay community could have no better friend than Ken Livingstone. A legendary member of the far-left wing of the Labour Party, the mayor has been an outspoken advocate for gay rights. He started the first Partnership Register in the United Kingdom. He regularly attends the London Gay Pride Parade. He has worked with his city’s police force to crack down on homophobic crime. In spite of this flawless record on gay rights, Livingstone has repeatedly expressed support for radical Islamist cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Qatar-based imam whom the mayor hosted at City Hall last year….
“Livingstone holds the value of ‘multiculturalism’ as the highest of all, even if that means respecting cultures that seek to destroy ours. The risk of offending a single Muslim is too onerous for Livingstone to condemn those who glorify terror. During the Cold War, the term ‘useful idiot’ (ironically coined by Lenin) was applied to those in the West who excused away or completely ignored the atrocities of Communism. ‘Red Ken’ Livingstone, as he is affectionately known, was a useful idiot then and is no less a useful idiot of the Islamofascists now.”
The usual right-wing American rubbish, assisted by quotes from Peter Tatchell and Brett Lock of Outrage.
Yale Daily News, 1 December 2005
Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer draws the appropriate conclusions: “This article shows why it is so important for Westerners to drop the outmoded language of Left and Right, as I have argued many times: there are those who are interested in defending Western civilization against the jihad, and those who aren’t. Ken Livingstone isn’t.” Spencer spells out his own tactical recommendation: “Opponents and proponents of gay marriage … need to unite now and defend against a common enemy who would render all such controversies moot.”
Rather redundant advice, I would have thought. Tatchell, Lock and their friends long ago adopted the position that, in order to pursue their vendetta against Islam in general and Dr al-Qaradawi in particular, they are more than ready to form a bloc with the anti-Muslim Right.