Yesterday, the Church’s organization Support Religious Freedom, a social media page dedicated to news and information about religious freedom, shared an article from ABC News about President Barack Obama’s first visit to a US mosque during his presidency.
The president made the trip to take a stand “for the constitutional right of religious freedom while also confronting the debate over Syrian refugees.” During the visit, President Obama compared the recent anti-Muslim rhetoric, especially the comments of presidential candidate Donald Trump, to the persecution members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints faced in their early history.
“Mormon communities have been attacked throughout our history…We have to understand that an attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths,” President Obama said in Baltimore. You can watch the entire news segment from Fox 13’s official report from Salt Lake City below.
In his speech, President Obama condemned hate and violence no matter the source.
“And just as faith leaders, including Muslims, must speak out when Christians are persecuted around the world or when anti-Semitism is on the rise — because the fact is there are Christians who are targeted now in the Middle East, despite having been there for centuries, and there are Jews who’ve lived in places like France for centuries who now feel obliged to leave because they feel themselves under assault — sometimes by Muslims. We have to be consistent in condemning hateful rhetoric and violence against everyone. And that includes against Muslims here in the United States of America. So none of us can be silent. We can’t be bystanders to bigotry. And together, we’ve got to show that America truly protects all faiths,” the president said.
Here is President Obama’s full speech at the Islamic Society of Baltimore:
