Working as the sun set in Washington, DC, the U.S. House passed the genocide resolution.

Hooray for the House! U.S. Representatives Pass ISIS Genocide Resolution 393 to 0!

on March 15, 2016

On Monday evening, March 14, in a full House vote, the U.S. House of Representatives voted unanimously to pass H.Con.Res.75, the resolution introduced by U.S. Representatives Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA). You can read more about this issue on my Patheos blog post here.

The original title of the concurrent resolution was: Expressing the sense of Congress that those who commit or support atrocities against Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities, including Yezidis, Turkmen, Sabea-Mandeans, Kaka‘e, and Kurds, and who target them specifically for ethnic or religious reasons, are committing, and are hereby declared to be committing, “war crimes”, “crimes against humanity”, and “genocide”.  During the floor consideration, the title was amended to this: Expressing the sense of Congress that the atrocities perpetrated by ISIL against religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria include war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, but other than the annoying and inaccurate use of “ISIL” (see the IRD video from our Providence Magazine recent conference at the Institute of World Politics and the bracing talk by Dr. Sebastian Gorka on ISIS about who and what ISIS calls themselves now!) all is well, and the text of the resolution remains the same.

I put together a short video blog of my thoughts on what this resolution means for the Christians, Yazidis, and other victims of ISIS. Please do pray for the upcoming determination by the State Department, and also that the members of the U.S. Senate would find it within themselves to make a similar courageous moral stand on behalf of the religious minorities in Iraq and Syria. 

  1. Comment by Alan Hoffman on April 8, 2016 at 9:07 am

    What amazes me is that with 2.3 billion Christians in some of the world’s most rich and powerful countries cannot rescue Christians. The Jews, poor in previous centuries, collected pennies in their charity boxes for centuries to secure safety for their fellow Jews (recall they suffered in both Christian and Arab lands), eventually bought back parts of their historical homeland and provided for the repatriation of Jews exiled 2,000 years ago (by white Europeans I might note). How is it that the US, EU and other nations cannot create local safe havens or take in Christians with all their power? What is really stopping them from choosing Christians over other refugees or giving them special treatment? Are we so “post-Christian” in our politics that Christians lives don’t matter – at all? It is past time for action.

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