On the one year anniversary of the U.S. House of Representatives passing unanimously the ISIS Genocide Resolution, here is the original blog post commending Congress for standing up for the Christians and Yazidis at a time when the State Department appeared poised to ignore their plight.
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.
Comment by R.A. McClain on March 15, 2017 at 5:33 pm
Will do, and will pass along your message. I am very hopeful that between you and your friends in the new administration, something WILL be done!
Comment by Aaron on May 26, 2017 at 1:05 am
thank you ma’am kindly for sharing this message.
I can’t help but also think of all the muslims who suffer at ISIS hands, of course the media doesn’t talk about it but that’s why I like this site because we really can share the real news.
We should also pray for our muslim sisters and brothers who are mostly suffering at ISIS hands, of course ISIS is active in predominantly muslim countries but imagine there are already 19 muslims for 1 christian affected by ISIS. and we all know how radicals and extremists treat the people who share their religion but don’t agree with their views, just look no further than the comments here. It’s worse.
Thank you again ma’am for sharing this .
-Aaron