Two Congressmen Host ‘One Of The Most Notorious Bigots In The World’

Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch anti-Islam Freedom
Party, speaks at a rally of so-called ‘Patriotic Europeans
against the Islamization of the West’ (PEGIDA) in
Dresden, Germany, Monday, April 13, 2015.

Two members of Congress hosted Dutch Politician and founder of the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom Geert Wilders Wednesday. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described Reps. Steve King (R-IA) and Louie Gohmert’s (R-TX) invitation for Wilders to speak to the Conservative Opportunity Society as “deeply distressing.”

“Muslims can be moderates. But there is no moderate Islam,” Wilders said to the crowd. “Islam has changed Europe beyond recognition.”

Wilders has a history of using discriminatory speech, particularly against Muslim immigrants and Islam, and he did so again at Wednesday’s speech by comparing the religion to National Socialism, or Nazism.

“Mr. Wilders is entitled to express his opinions, but for an elected member of the House of Representatives to provide a platform for a man who is practically an international symbol of anti-Muslim hatred not only lends him credibility, it ill-serves the goal of having a Congress that lives up to America’s ideals of tolerance,” Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, said in a press release from earlier this week. “Reps. King and Gohmert should reconsider the invitation, given this individual’s established record as one of the most notorious bigots in the world.”  READ MORE