Posted on 03/27/2014 11:39:15 AM PDT by xzins
Franklin Graham defended his controversial remarks about homosexuality, Russian president Vladimir Putin and Islam, saying that he is only following in his father's own activist footsteps.
"You talk about controversy – my father (Billy Graham) stood with Martin Luther King in the early 1960s," Graham told The Charlotte Observer. "My father never worried about polls. I don't care about them, either. And with the issues we are facing today – if my father were a younger man, he would be addressing and speaking out in the exact same way I'm speaking out on them."
Late last month, Graham suggested that Putin was "right" on how the Russian government had dealt with its LGBT activists.
"Obviously, he may be wrong about many things, but he has taken a stand to protect his nation's children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda," he wrote for Decision magazine.
In 2011, the head of the humanitarian organization Samaritan's Purse suggested that American Muslims do not genuinely practice their faith, because those who do are violent.
"True Islam cannot be practiced in this country. You can't beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they've committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries," he told CNN.
But on Tuesday, Graham suggested that his blunt remarks about LGBT activists and those "living in sin" were rooted in tough love.
"I love people enough and care enough," Graham said, "to warn them … that if they chose to continue to live in sin, God is going to judge them one day and they'll be separated from Him for eternity in hell."
He also asserted that gay couples who want to adopt children are possibly looking to indoctrinate them with a pernicious worldview.
"[Gay couples] can recruit. You can adopt a child into a marriage, but you can also recruit children into your cause. I believe in protecting children from exploitation – all exploitations," he said.
On Tuesday, Graham hosted a dinner for 175 Charlotte, N.C., pastors to focus on the plight of pastor Saeed Abedini, who has been imprisoned in Iran since 2012.
Abedini's wife, Naghmeh, attended the event and encouraged the public to speak out for her husband's release.
"The more people who are praying and getting involved, the better," Naghmeh told the Observer. "The spotlight on him is keeping him alive."
Preach it, Franklin! I stand with you!
Yep.
I hope he turns it up! His courage is one of the main reasons I support Samaritan’s Purse.
Glad he has the cajones to stand by his words.
It’s sadly missing these days. And that too was part of the agenda... destroy courage, masculinity, and Americanism as well.
Can’t stand the left at all.
Go Franklin go, the truth needs to be told every day.
He seems to be stronger in the Lord than even his father. You go brother!
I admire his courage and conviction, but I hope Franklin is ready for what’s coming. The radical gay organizations will try to ruin or divest his financial structure, namely that of Samaritain’s Purse. It matters not how much good his organization does around the world. They will come after his investors and backers as with The Boy Scouts. I’m surprised The Boy Scouts still exists at all considering how many big name lemmings have thought it fashionable to drop their support. I wish him luck and great awareness against this foe.
Queers adopting children, a position advocated by both presidential candidates in the last election but Romney did add, "as long as they love each other".
Why adopt when you have a government school system and pop culture that groom kids to homosexuality? A kid is more at risk in school for sexual molestation than at a church, but nobody knows that because the media covers it up.
Although I liked his father, I think Franklin is far less anxious to be PC than his father. I say good for him. Would that so-called conservative politicians were of the same stuff.
Amen! Would that God would send a thousand more just like him. His strength of conviction and courage for Christ is sadly lacking in the Church today. My own Church could take a lesson or two from him.
Amen! Me too. I am also fortunate to have a Pastor that speaks the same way.
What a blessing this man of God must be to his Earthly father, the Rev. Billy and what a rich heritage.
"He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved."
I stand with Graham! but...
sadly I fear its only a matter of time before he apologizes
I love and respect his father. There is no greater evangelist of the last century than him. But you are correct that his son is less PC. Quite honestly, he had to be. His generation and ours has seen much more overt wickedness through evil mechanisms such as homosexuality and Islam than his father did. Billy was afforded the courtesy of preaching in public arenas where politicians of both parties bowed their heads next to uniformed military generals. I remember an Air Force 3 star peaking at one of Billy’s crusades. That would NEVER be allowed today. If you are a warrior for Jesus Christ, you have to fight the enemy that Satan sends out to the battlefield.
>”True Islam cannot be practiced in this country. You can’t beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they’ve committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries,” he told CNN.<
.
What Franklin still does not realize is that it does not stop with wife beatings and honor killings but that, in the end, non-believers will also become victims of their murderous way of life.
Franklin should have concluded that Islam is totally incompatible with anything not Islamic. He should have finished his sentence.
Let’s go further. Any belief that tempts people away from a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is from hell.
Franklin is a good guy, but I don’t know if I’d brag about marching with Comrade King.
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