Second installment about neo-Confederate hostility against Muslims

At one point the Sons of Confederate Veterans had a publication put out by their Education PAC titled Southern Mercury.  It was really shrill and screaming.  Not surprisingly one of the issues had an attack on Muslims.

In this issue, with its horribly designed cover, is the lead cover article, "What Thomas Jefferson Learned from the Q'uran." (Southern Mercury, Vol. 5, No. 2, April 2007,  pages 12-13.)

The editor was Ron Wilson who at one time was the Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

It is an article by Ted Samply about the Quran that Thomas Jefferson owned and which Minnosota Democrat Keith Ellison used to take his oath of office in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The article published in the Southern Mercury can be found online in several places.

This is one URL for the article. http://valleypatriot.com/what-thomas-jefferson-learned-from-the-muslim-book-of-jihad/

The Southern Partisan was published starting in 1979 until it faded out after 2005. It was the leading publication of neo-Confederate ideology. It had contributors who were columnists, professors, authors, religious leaders, politicians and others. This is the publication to which U.S. Senator Lindsey Grahmn gave an interview.

With the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York on Sept. 11, 2001 was seized by the Southern Partisan as an opportunity to push an anti-Muslim agenga. The Southern Partisan was usually late to very late in publication and likely the issue came out in 2002.

The editor of this issue was Christopher M. Sullivan who later was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Besides the cover article, there were of course a couple of anti-Muslim articles such as "The Dark Side of Islam," by P.J. Byrnes and "Does the Future Belong to Islam?" by Joe Sobran.

However, several articles, though anti-Muslim in perspective were focused pushing some pet reactionary viewpoint.

For example, Christopher M. Sullivan, one time editor of Southern Partisan, and also who served once as the Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans had an article, "Whose Fault?" (Southern Partisan, 2001 4th Quarter, page 16.)

Sullivan sees the fault in too much religious tolerance, a need for a close alliance with Israel, but contradictorily an avoidance of involvement in foreign matters.

The avoidance of using 9/11 for anti-Muslim animus seemed to irritate them.  Sullivan writes:

The United States is an open society even to it's own detriment. You can be anything from an Episcopalian to a witch without so much as a cross word from authorities. In Muslim countries the opposite is true. Just being a Christian is enough to make you the object of government scrutiny, while sharing your faith can be a capital offense. [Boldface added.] 

And:

While their Eastern brothers speak the name of Jesus in fear of torture and martyrdom, most Western Christians are terrified of doing or saying anything that might be construed as the least bit offensive. To say that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven is tantamount to racism in America today.  

The most outrageous example comes from the prayer service held at the National Cathedral. 

He then refers to Rev. Dixon's invocation at the Cathedral.

Rev. Dixon stood in the pulpit of the National Cathedral and prayed, "In the nae of the God of Abraham, Muhammad, and the Father of Jesus Christ ..." When a minister of a Christian faith cannot stand in the pulpit of a Christian church and pray to an exclusively Christian God, it is impossible for that nation to engage in holy war.

Which was rather the point of Rev. Dixon invocation, and it was a great frustration for Sullivan that 9/11 was not going to be used by the George W. Bush administration to persecute Muslims.

Rev. Father Alister Anderson, who has been a Chaplain-in-Chief for the Sons of Confederate Veterans argued that 9/11 was a diaster allowed by good to punish the US for being ungodly. Anderson writes:

My Christian faith in a good righteous, just, merciful and loving God convinces me that there must be reasons why this holocaust occured. They are enumerated again and again in the Holy Bible. God withdraws for a time His safeguarding cover over mankind when he sees us deliberately withdrawning ourselves from His righteous Law which is our cover. God's judgment of mankind's wickedness embraces each personal and deliberate decision to ignore Him as well as the more obvious and collective world-wide rejection of His will for us. (pp. 14)

 About two to three years later the Southern Partisan had its anti-Islam issue. The editor of this issue was Christopher M. Sullivan who later was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The articles by Ben Hart and Richard Spencer argue that Islam is murderous and in particular murderous of Christians. There is imagery from the crusades. 

Richard Spencer is mentioned as the director of Jihad Watch at the end of the article. Ben Hart is likely Benjamin Hart, and the the author of "Radical Islam vs. America." 

It is not know whether Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis had anything to say about Muslims if anything at all, but the modern neo-Confederate movement has a position on Islam and Muslims.

Christopher M. Sullivan is listed as Lt. Commander-in-Chief in the May-June 2005 issue of the Confederate Veteran and was listed as Commander-in-Chief in the Confederate Veteran Sept.-Oct. 2006 issue.