A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. -Thomas Jefferson
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Uh-oh.
Looks like I'll be one of the first to go to the "re-education camps."
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
From the Horse's Mouth:
The audio recording of Barack Obama espousing his socialist philosophy of “redistribution of wealth” is all over the Internet and Fox News today (although most other media outlets are ignoring it), but there’s another disturbing section on that tape that has so far escaped notice...
At about 15:30, Obama compares what was going on in the United States during the time of Brown vs. the Board of Education to ... Nazi Germany. Yes, really. Here’s the quote:
“...just to take a, sort of a realist perspective...there’s a lot of change going on outside of the Court, um, that, that judges essentially have to take judicial notice of. I mean you’ve got World War II, you’ve got uh, uh, uh, the doctrines of Nazism, that, that we are fighting against, that start looking uncomfortably similar to what we have going on, back here at home.”
There you have it. America is close to electing a President who compares his own country to Nazi Germany.
NoBama Blogburst:
Some people argue that domestic issues are of far greater importance than any discussion of character. I could not disagree more. All elections are about character. If we cannot trust the honor, patriotism, and fidelity of our elected representatives, then the issues don’t matter because whatever a candidate of low character shall say about political issues cannot matter.
I believe we each must consider the character of the two men who want us to elect them as our next president. Some may argue “What more is there to know about either candidate?” after a campaign that has lasted far too long. Ordinarily, at this point in the campaign, I would say, “nothing more.” Except in this election, “We the People” have found the press (as guardians of American democracy) seriously deficient. Rather than remaining impartial, the media has fallen head-over-heels in love with one of the candidates; we must excuse them from the jury of the court of public opinion. This year, the American people have not witnessed a fair trial.
Samuel Adams once said, "The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men,” but this was long before the Obama Era. Political correctness and liberal bias have led us to outcries of racism for even asking questions not even remotely related to race.. The press castigated our friend “Joe the Plumber” for daring to ask about income redistribution. According to one radio report, the Secret Service visited a woman because she told an Obama Campaign worker that she would vote for Barack Obama, “over her dead body.” This kind of attention applied to citizens for merely expressing an opinion is patently un-American, but it is also reminiscent of the intimidation used to silence dissent in communist countries. Character matters all right, especially if suppression of the right of expression is what we can expect from an Obama presidency.
In order to assess the character of our presidential contenders, we must decide upon an appropriate exemplar. On the democratic side of the aisle, the obvious notables are Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. Jefferson may be too far back in time to serve as our role model. Roosevelt was a patent socialist. Truman left office as one of the most unpopular of all our presidents. Lyndon Johnson gave us too many scars. Mr. Carter was a buffoon and Bill Clinton . . . well, I wonder if we aren’t just a little too tired of hearing about him. Kennedy seems to qualify as the best Democratic Party exemplar, even if he was a womanizer; no one is perfect.
In the twentieth Century, notable Republican presidents have included Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. Of these, Roosevelt was impetuous, Eisenhower cautious, Nixon resigned in disgrace, and Reagan was the great communicator. I therefore propose Reagan as our Republican Party exemplar.
In 1961, John Kennedy issued this mandate to the American people: “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” John Kennedy became the darling of the American people; many around the world shared this view. We called his presidency Camelot. He was young, relatively inexperienced, but he excited the people about America’s future. He believed in the rights of man, a strong national defense, and the protection of liberty throughout the world. He believed that nuclear deterrence was insufficient to maintain peaceful coexistence. He believed the United States should be a beacon of hope, and he argued for increased world trade. He sought to achieve working partnerships with other world leaders to achieve dignity, justice, and liberty for all the people of the world. He sought to attain solidarity among the western (Atlantic) nations; he refuted communism as doomed to failure. He set forth an economic policy of unshackled enterprise, industrial leadership, and vibrant capitalism. He sought to lower interest rates in order to increase the flow of money, reduced government spending, and lower taxes. He also vowed to help small businesses through government loans and fair trade policy. Mr. Kennedy was a fiscal conservative.
Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat. He said, “I didn’t leave my party; my party left me.” We assume he spoke about the party of John Kennedy, a platform designed to inspire the American people to greatness. This was also the platform of Ronald Reagan. He repudiated the policy of Jimmy Carter; looking forward, he said, “Democratic politicians are without programs or ideas to reverse economic decline and despair. They are divided, leaderless, unseeing, uncomprehending, they plod on with listless offerings of pale imitations of the same policies they have pursued so long, knowing full well their futility.”
Reagan brought the American people a new pride in their country and themselves, their achievements and future possibilities. He wanted the American people to have liberty and freedom of choice, low taxes as a catalyst for economic growth. He repudiated the so-called Great Society because it created low human productivity. He fought for an expansion of private property ownership, committed himself to improved economic opportunities for black Americans, rights and equality for every minority, and equal opportunities for women. He was committed to the rights of unborn children.
Modern Democrats have turned Kennedy’s ideal upside down; now the cry is “Ask what your country can do for you.” Today’s Democrat pursues the politics of dependency, the essential breaking point between civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jesse Jackson. King wanted black Americans to realize the reality of equality, while Jackson’s policies pursue racism, separatism, and demands for greater gifts from the government. King wanted black Americans judged according to their character; Jackson views character as secondary concern because the means justifies the end. King fought for unity, Jackson has dedicated his entire life to reverse-segregation.
Modern Republicans have broken faith with the American people. They broke their Contract with America. Much of what has happened since mid-2005 is the result of this failure. As a Republican, I bemoan a Democratically controlled Congress, but I realize that men such as Duke Cunningham brought it to fruition. But, before anyone starts gloating, we should note that the United States Congress today has achieved the low point of popular opinion; it cannot possibly get worse. Or, can it?
It is time to ask ourselves where Barack Obama and John McCain stand with regard to our exemplars of presidential character. We should assume that “Country First” is a sentiment that every patriotic American deeply subscribes; that all of us want to see positive changes for the future. That said, let us dispense with bumper-sticker ideology, and investigate the actual character of each candidate. Let us consider the deeds of these men rather than their words.
Before announcing his candidacy for the highest office, Barack Obama associated himself with socialist organizations, a peculiar philosophy that supports state or collective ownership of all property and the means of production. Since we achieve personal and national wealth through property and the means of production, Mr. Obama apparently believes than an egalitarian society is only possible when the state controls property and wealth. By extension, the State will distribute wealth according to its own priorities, and the State will achieve this through any number of programs, including taxation. Socialist programs relieve individuals of responsibility, for themselves, and for their families. We see this clearly in Mr. Obama’s platform;
Economic Policy
• An immediate energy rebate to American families
• An expenditure of $50 billion to jumpstart the economy
• Federal assistance to states and localities in education, health care, and infrastructure
• Implement the Congressional housing bill through state and local spending
• Federal investment in infrastructure to replenish highways and bridges
• Expenditures in education to replace and repair schools
• Immediate steps to stem the loss of manufacturing jobs.
• Increase employment and implementing shared prosperity.
• National health care initiatives
We should perhaps note at this point that governments do not create wealth, people do. Governments may facilitate productivity through sound economic policy, but they cannot interfere in a market economy without significant disruption to capitalist investment and diminishing personal and corporate income and profits. Barack Obama’s socialist platform is anathema to Kennedy’s economic philosophy, and may be unparalleled since the days of Franklin Roosevelt. Simply stated, responsible government cannot spend more than anticipated revenues, and it is contrary to American values to redistribute income in a free-market environment.
John McCain is a moderate conservative approximating John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. He believes that the Constitution of the United States limits the role of the federal government, and he strives to work with the Congress within a constitutional framework to improve government efficiency and reduce waste. Like Kennedy and Reagan, McCain believes that lower taxes improve productivity, and that reduced spending is fiscally responsible and economically necessary. While there are some things the federal government must do, other projects constitutionally fall within the purview of the 50 states. National defense and homeland security is something the federal government must do, but the central government must form partnerships with the states on other important human-services programs. Reflected in Mr. McCain’s platform:
Economic Policy
• Implement immediate transparency to the budgeting process
• Evaluate and reduce spending on wasteful and inefficient programs
• Empower states to improve public services
• Implement meaningful (and trustworthy) oversight of government programs
• Make government more efficient and responsive to citizen’s needs
• Prioritize spending to improve and safeguard America’s infrastructure
• Modernize Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid Programs
• Restore Social Security to a sound financial basis
• Expand opportunities to promote personal and industrial prosperity
Of these two men, which has the greatest character? Which of these candidates maintains faith with our founding principles of Constitutional Federalism, a steady hand on the tiller of state, while allowing individuals to choose for themselves their best course? John McCain is not a perfect man, nor is he without justifiable criticism of his previous positions; but John McCain is an open book. His service to his country and his associations has been honorable, and trustworthy.
Barack Obama has not been honest and forthright with the American people. He has hidden his past associations or played them down. He has defamed religious teaching through adherence to black separatist theology and racism, consorted with known terrorists, and enjoys the backing of organizations harmful to the interests and the people of the United States. As an advocate of socialist/Marxist ideology, Barack Obama is frankly, in our judgment, un-American. He falls far short of exemplars such as John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
Character matters because our nation is facing crises on several critical fronts. If we intend to resolve these problems, we must have the steady hand of true statesmanship. We must have in our president wisdom, experience, honesty, fidelity, and valor. Our president must be a man whose character is consistent with our Nation’s legacy of liberty and equality.
Every presidential election brings forth professional pundits who tell us that this election is the most important of our entire lifetime. This time, they could be right. Our selection of the right man will assure our children, and theirs, of a nation dedicated to individual liberty, prosperity, and the pursuit of happiness. If we choose the wrong man, we may very well witness an end to the United States as created by our forefathers. We are living in perilous times — there is no room for error in our selection of the 44th President of the United States.
On Election Day, one of these candidates will receive a majority of popular votes. In December, the Electoral College will validate the popular vote and confirm the identity of our next president. But this election is more than a referendum on the ability of the American voter to discern between two well-educated men. This election is rather a test of America’s ability to distinguish and reward personal character and to recognize integrity and statesmanship between one man who possesses these qualities and the other who does not.
We urge Americans to vote for John McCain. There simply is no other choice that is good for the American people, or our great country.
How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin" — Ronald Reagan
Monday, October 27, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Halloween is Coming...
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Poll Results You Didn't See
McCain Obama
Overall 68 23
Army 68 23
Navy 69 24
Air Force 67 24
Marines 75 18
Retirees 72 20
White Non-Hispanic 76 17
Hispanic 63 27
Black/African-American 12 79
Enlisted 67 24
Officers 70 22
But I'm sure that race has nothing to do with this election.
Funny how the results of this poll never made the midstream media...
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Another Thing Muslims Find Offensive:
Here's another one for Kevin's list.
One of the fall's most anticipated video games for the PlayStation 3, Sony's "LittleBigPlanet," had to be yanked from shelves at the last minute Monday because it might accidentally offend Muslims.
"One of the background music tracks that was licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Quran," Sony said in a statement Monday. "We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense this may have caused."
The piece of music in question is "Tapha Niang" by the Grammy-winning Malian musician Toumani Diabaté, who sings and plays a West African stringed instrument called the kora.
Devotional music doesn't raise eyebrows in many Muslim countries, including several in West Africa including Mali, but it's a no-no for some strict Sunnis, who frown upon instrumented music of any sort.
The game was pulled the day before it's release for offense it hadn't even caused yet?!?
Dhimmitude is sickening, especially when it is preemptive.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Political Roundup:
NoBama Blogburst Tuesday... Better Late Than Never!
William Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist, who by his own admission assures us that he did not participate in enough acts of terror to advance his cause properly, has achieve national attention. Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose vile condemnations of “white America” entertained Mr. Obama for twenty years. Rev. Louis Farrakhan (born: Louis Eugene Walcott) who, as the leader of the Nation of Islam is a racist, a black separatist, a homophobe, and an anti-Semite. Barack Obama joined with Louis Farrakhan and Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi supporting Raila Odinga in his bid to become president of Kenya. Odinga’s political defeat resulted in Muslim violence, burning churches, murdering 1,000 anti-Odinga voters, and renewed demands for the imposition of Shari’ah Law. Abongo (Roy) Obama, the brother of Barack, is a former Christian now radical Muslim convert, supporter of Cousin Raila Odinga. Roy Obama wants to institute Shari’ah law, wants Barack Obama to convert back to Islam and, as an American president, adopt anti-Israeli policies. Moussa Marzook is a member of Hamas and author of the Hamas Manifesto, first published in the Los Angeles Times and later reprinted and sold by Jeremiah Wright from the vestibule of Trinity United Church of Christ. Mr. Marzook was indicted by the United States government on issues relating to foreign terrorist activities inside the United States of America. Hamas endorsed Barack Obama for the American presidency in April 2008. Tony Rezko gave financial backing to Barack Obama early in his to-date short-lived political career. Even though Mr. Obama plays down the association with Mr. Rezko, it is difficult to ignore that the facts prove differently. (See also: Allison Davis, below) Nadhmi Auchi is linked to Barack Obama through Tony Rezko. He is an Iraqi born billionaire who the U. S. government claims operated as a bagman for Saddam Hussein. He is a London-based financier, one of the world’s richest men. In 2003, he was convicted of fraud involving the “Elf Affair,” Europe’s largest scandal since the end of World War II. Allison Davis, former employer of Barack Obama, who later closed his law firm and became a partner of Tony Rezko. Davis assigned Mr. Obama to legal work on behalf of Mr. Rezko. Rev. James T. Meeks, whom Barack Obama regularly sought for counseling, who served as an Obama delegate at the Democratic Convention and is a long-time political ally, who aided Obama as an influential black supporter, received funding from Tony Rezko. Meeks is known for anti-Jewish and homophobic rhetoric. Rashid Khalidi, along with William Ayers and Barack Obama, is a former professor at Chicago University. He directs the Palestine Press Agency in Beirut, is an agent of the Arab American Action Network, and according to a top official of former-President George H. W. Bush and a former CIA intelligence officer, former Weather Underground leader William Ayers funneled money to Khalidi, who maintains ties with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Khalidi also received $70,000 from the Woods Fund, and held fund-raising events in his home on behalf of Barack Obama. Barack Obama is a former director of The Woods Fund, a non-profit organization that, in addition to its interests in “giving a voice to less advantaged people,” helped funnel money to Rashid Khalidi for the Arab American Action Network, which presumably includes Palestinian interests within the United States. The Woods Fund also helps to finance “community organizing, and public policy.” Created in 1995 to help raise funds to reform Chicago public schools, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge involved William Ayers as a leading founder, who in turn appointed Barack Obama to its board of directors. Mr. Obama served on the board for six years. According to investigative journalist Stanley Kurtz, writing for the Wall Street Journal, reforming Chicago public schools is a bid misleading: it was a program designed to radicalize students more than it was to educate them. According to Ayers, “Teachers should be community organizers, dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression.”
The New Party is an umbrella organization for grassroots political groups working to break the stranglehold that corporate money and corporate media have over our political process. Our current work and long-term strategy is to change states' election rules to allow fusion voting - a method of voting that allows minor parties to have their own ballot line with which they can either endorse their own candidates or endorse the candidates of other parties. Through fusion, minor parties don't have to always compete in the winner-take-all two party system and can avoid "spoiling" - throwing an election to the most conservative candidate by splitting the votes that might go to two more progressive candidates (ours and another party's).
Illinois: Three NP-members won Democratic primaries last spring and face off against Republican opponents on Election Day: Danny Davis (U.S. House), Barack Obama (State Senate), and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary). Note: Readers familiar with Chicago politics will recognize the names of former Chicago mayor Danny Davis on that list also.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Religion of Peace Roundup
SERVE Afghanistan is a British-based Christian aid organization that focuses on community development and education and vocational training for people with disabilities.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. "We killed her for spreading Christian propaganda," Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the militant group, told Reuters by telephone.
How very tolerant.
For all the whining we hear about "Crusaders," it seems that the holy war is coming from Islam.
Now comes a dose of backyard Sharia.
From this source:
SEATTLE – Five Seattle-area immigrants from Afghanistan enslaved a teenage girl they brought to the U.S., with some forcing her to do chores and one — her 37-year-old husband — beating and sexually assaulting her, according to a federal indictment unsealed this week.
The girl is from an impoverished single-parent home in Afghanistan, and she was informally adopted by another family there that forced her to marry at age 13 in 2005, Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office, said Thursday. The girl's husband is Mohammad Atahee, a friend of the adoptive family; U.S. officials don't recognize the marriage.
Atahee and three of the family's members were already living in the south Seattle suburbs when t
he girl's adoptive mother, Nasima Yousuf, 70, brought her to the United States in 2006, as part of what prosecutors say was a plot to enslave her. Yousuf's husband, Mohammad, 84, had filed an immigration petition to bring the girl to the U.S., claiming his wife was her biological mother.
Once in the country, the indictment said, the girl, identified only as JV1, was forced to live with Atahee, who beat her and sexually assaulted her. She was forced to spend at least three days a week at the Auburn home of Maruf Yousufi, 42, and his wife, Nahid, 29 — caring for their children, doing laundry, cooking and cleaning. Maruf Yousufi is Mohammad Yousuf's son.
The girl escaped after some good Samaritans helped her report Atahee to the police in January 2008 for sexual assault, prosecutors said. Since then, she's been at a safe house, but they won't say where.
Slavery right here in your own backyard courtesy of the "religion of peace." Isn't that lovely?
Last but not least, we've got the terrorists followers of a pedophile using pedophilia sites to spread terror.
Kind of disgustingly poetic, isn't it?
From this source:
A link between terrorism plots and hardcore child pornography is becoming clear after a string of police raids in Britain and across the Continent, an investigation by The Times has discovered. Images of child abuse have been found during Scotland Yard antiterrorism swoops and in big inquiries in Italy and Spain.
Secret coded messages are being embedded into child pornographic images, and paedophile websites are being exploited as a secure way of passing information between terrorists.
British security services are also aware of the trend and believe that it requires further investigation to improve understanding of terrorists’ methods and mindsets. Concerns within the Metropolitan Police led to a plan to run a pilot research project exploring the nature of the link. One source familiar with the proposal said that this could eventually lead to the training of child welfare experts to identify signs of terrorist involvement as they monitor pornographic sites.
What can we expect from the followers of a 52 year old man who espoused violence and married a girl at six years old and consummated that 'marriage' a mere three years later? They probably think these websites being encoded with terrorism is a match made in heaven.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Sunday Football
Friday, October 17, 2008
Empire Market Training
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Socialism For Kids
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Ohio Voter Fraud Update...
The full 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld a lower court's ruling that Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must use other government records to check the thousands of new voters for registration fraud...Ohio Republicans sued Brunner, a Democrat.
"Her delay in providing this matching system leaves little time for election officials to act on questionable registrations," Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett said Tuesday night. "Once again, Jennifer Brunner has wasted valuable taxpayer dollars only to have her partisan agenda rejected by a court of law. Her shameful actions to disenfranchise Republican absentee voters, block the transparency of early voting and refuse the proper verification of newly registered voters have rightfully damaged her credibility as a nonpartisan election administrator. She is destroying the public trust in Ohio's elections system." [...]
Brunner argued that it would take two to three days to create the necessary computer programs, and that nothing in the Help America Vote Act required her to do what the district court ordered.
Tuesday's order directs Brunner to verify new registrations by comparing information on them with the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Obama. A Robbing Hood.
"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success too." - Barack Hussein Obama
OBAMA/BIDEN ECONOMIC PLAN A FRAUD
Wages are Stagnant as Prices Rise: While wages remain flat, the costs of basic necessities are increasing. The cost of in-state college tuition has grown 35 percent over the past five years. Health care costs have risen four times faster than wages over the past six years. And the personal savings rate is now the lowest it's been since the Great Depression.
Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class: The Bush tax cuts give those who earn over $1 million dollars a tax cut nearly 160 times greater than that received by middle-income Americans. At the same time, this administration has refused to tackle health care, education and housing in a
manner that benefits the middle class.
Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama and Biden will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.
Note 1: Job training programs are vital to ensuring that young people entering the work place for the first time are qualified to find and maintain good paying and rewarding jobs/careers. We concur that retraining is a necessary step for workers laid off in a dwindling industry, but we also think that an increase in vocational/technical training as an adjunct of public education makes sense for 70% of high school students. Most educators regard such programs as invalid, but the absence of such programs explains why our dropout rates are so high within the public education sector.
Participants: Always on Watch; And Rightly So; Big Girl Pants; Cheese In My Shoe; Chuck Thinks Right; Confessions of a Closet Republican; Defending Crusader; Farmer’s Letters; Fore Left; GeeeeeZ; Has Everyone Gone Nuts?; Learn Something Today; Long Range; Palace for a Princess; Papa Frank; Mind of a Misfit; Paleocon Command Center; Political Yin and Yang; Pondering Penguin; Right Truth; Social Sense; The Amboy Times; The Bitten Word; The Crank Files; The Jungle Hut; The Logic Lifeline; The Merry Widow; TSOFAH;
Monday, October 13, 2008
"I Am Both Muslim and Christian"... WTF?!?
Shortly after noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding ties on a black headscarf, preparing to pray with her Muslim group on First Hill.
On Sunday mornings, Redding puts on the white collar of an Episcopal priest.
She does both, she says, because she's Christian and Muslim.
Redding, who until recently was director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, has been a priest for more than 20 years. Now she's ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she's also been a Muslim — drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.
Her announcement has provoked surprise and bewilderment in many, raising an obvious question: How can someone be both a Christian and a Muslim?
But it has drawn other reactions too. Friends generally say they support her, while religious scholars are mixed: Some say that, depending on how one interprets the tenets of the two faiths, it is, indeed, possible to be both. Others consider the two faiths mutually exclusive.
"There are tenets of the faiths that are very, very different," said Kurt Fredrickson, director of the doctor of ministry program at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. "The most basic would be: What do you do with Jesus?"
Christianity has historically regarded Jesus as the son of God and God incarnate, both fully human and fully divine. Muslims, though they regard Jesus as a great prophet, do not see him as divine and do not consider him the son of God.
"I don't think it's possible" to be both, Fredrickson said, just like "you can't be a Republican and a Democrat."
Redding, who will begin teaching the New Testament as a visiting assistant professor at Seattle University this fall, has a different analogy: "I am both Muslim and Christian, just like I'm both an American of African descent and a woman. I'm 100 percent both."
Redding doesn't feel she has to resolve all the contradictions. People within one religion can't even agree on all the details, she said. "So why would I spend time to try to reconcile all of Christian belief with all of Islam?
"At the most basic level, I understand the two religions to be compatible. That's all I need."
She says she felt an inexplicable call to become Muslim, and to surrender to God — the meaning of the word "Islam."
"It wasn't about intellect," she said. "All I know is the calling of my heart to Islam was very much something about my identity and who I am supposed to be.
"I could not not be a Muslim."
Redding's situation is highly unusual. Officials at the national Episcopal Church headquarters said they are not aware of any other instance in which a priest has also been a believer in another faith. They said it's up to the local bishop to decide whether such a priest could continue in that role.
Redding's bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, says he accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, and that he finds the interfaith possibilities exciting. Her announcement, first made through a story in her diocese's newspaper, hasn't caused much controversy yet, he said.
Some local Muslim leaders are perplexed.
Being both Muslim and Christian — "I don't know how that works," said Hisham Farajallah, president of the Islamic Center of Washington.
But Redding has been embraced by leaders at the Al-Islam Center of Seattle, the Muslim group she prays with.
"Islam doesn't say if you're a Christian, you're not a Muslim," said programming director Ayesha Anderson. "Islam doesn't lay it out like that."
Redding believes telling her story can help ease religious tensions, and she hopes it can be a step toward her dream of creating an institute to study Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
"I think this thing that's happened to me can be a sign of hope," she said.