The Poor, Persecuted Majority
Being persecuted in this country means being chased around your school and called "dirty Jew," and having kids egg your house and write similar slogans on your garage in shaving cream. My father had to meet with the principal, Mr. Townsend, in junior high school, when a group of bigger, older girls were throwing chairs at me in the hall and yelling anti-semitic epithets.
What being persecuted isn't? Well, how about not being allowed to knock down the wall between church and state? But, suddenly, Cathy Young points out in Reason, it isn't "liberals" doing all the whining, it's the fundies:
Now, the right is embracing a victimhood cult obsessed with slights toward a group that makes up 85 percent of the American population.According to a Washington Post report, one conference speaker, Navy chaplain Lieutenant Gordon James Klingenschmitt, compared himself to Abdur Rahman, the Afghan convert. Showing slides of himself and Rahman, Klingenschmitt inquired, "What do these two Christians have in common?" and answered: "Perhaps we are persecuted." His persecution consisted of being disciplined by a commander for saying sectarian prayers at a sailor's memorial service.
DeLay, ousted as House majority leader after being indicted for money laundering and conspiracy, was touted as another victim of religious bigotry, targeted for being outspoken about his faith, and his legal and political woes were compared to a crucifixion. (Isn't that offensive to Christians?) One is reminded of race-obsessed zealots who see a racist conspiracy in every prosecution of a prominent African-American, from O.J. Simpson to a corrupt politician.
There is a nugget of truth in some complaints of anti-Christian bias. Many people in the academic and journalistic elites do turn up their noses at anything that smacks of faith. Some activists, courts, and public officials have misconstrued the prohibition on state establishment of religion as banning any mention of religion in the public square, from a tiny church with a cross on a city seal to a reference to God in a high school graduation speech. The "War on Christians" conference featured such an incident: An artist's three paintings for a Black History Month art show at the City Hall of Deltona, Florida, were rejected because they included a man in an "I love Jesus" cap and a minister with a Bible. (The ban was reversed under threat of a lawsuit.)
Such bizarre secularist excesses should be condemned. But the complainers go much further. They cry persecution when religious conservatives are denied the ability to impose their beliefs on everyone—for instance, to ban abortion or gay unions. In fact, much of the hostility they encounter is directed at this political agenda, not at religion as such: People who bash the religious right seldom object when faith is invoked to protest war, poverty, or racism. This is a double standard, to be sure, but it's just as hypocritical for religious conservatives to suggest that Christians who don't subscribe to their brand of values aren't "real" Christians.
On a positive note in my own situation, years later, when my column started running in a Detroit paper, one of these girls emailed me to apologize for how they'd all treated me in seventh grade. The boys who egged our house, wrote epithets on our garage, and toilet-papered our trees still have yet to say a word. I hope they wake up some nights thinking about what they did. P.S. I still haven't been brought to trial for killing Jesus.
As it says in the book of Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. And the idea that Christians are somehow persecuted in this country is not new.
Pat Robertson, vile and disgusting human being that he is, imagines the Christians to be most persecuted class (at least in this country) the world has ever seen. Here's my favorite quote of his, given in an interview with the sagacious Molly Ivins:
"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."
Really? I'd be willing to dispute that and I might provide a few examples. Like Native Americans who were deliberate infected with small pox by our early settlers, to say nothing of the being robbed of their land and every peace treaty violated. African Americans being routinely lynched. The Jews and other minorities being exterminated by genocidal leaders like Stalin and Hitler. And the list goes on.
Yeah, poor Christians.
Another popular urban legend of the persecuted Christians is a tale circulated by Newt Gingrich, about some boy supposedly given detention for "saying grace privately over his lunch."
Too bad the school's superintendent had to spoil a perfectly wonderful story of religious persecution by pointing out that the boy was not disciplined for praying. Praying in the school is not prohibited. Organized prayer is not allowed, but individual prayers are fine.
Patrick at April 5, 2006 6:37 AM
I'll never understand why you folks are so fascinated with Pat Robertson. But for this website, I've gone whole months without thinking of him, and decades without worrying. Admit it: You love thinking about that guy... It's *gratifying* to you.
Crid at April 5, 2006 7:17 AM
See, she loses me when she starts throwing around the word "elites" for a couple of reasons: a) "elites" has often been used as a code word for Jews, and b) I think it's misapplied. College profs aren't the ones snapping up multi-million dollar ski homes in Vail. It's the people like the Bushes and the Kennedys who have money and family connections who are the real "elites" in this country, regardless of their belief system.
deja pseu at April 5, 2006 7:42 AM
Deja Pseu --
I can't speak for journalism, but I do know that many sociologists, psychologists, and public health professionals are interested in the role of religion beliefs and practices in fostering social cohesion, well-being, etc. The American Sociological Association has a section on the Sociology of Religion, and the American Public Health Association has a Faith Caucus.
Also, many "out" homosexuals love Jesus and are very active in the church (and they usually look like they should be much more active in the gym -- MEOW!!).
Lena
Lena at April 5, 2006 9:37 AM
Lena,
Not sure how that addresses either of my points about the word "elites". But otherwise I have no argument with what you've said. If people find that faith helps them, fine. I have a problem with the fundies who want to force everyone to live by their narrow definition of "God" and would establish a theocracy here if they could.
deja pseu at April 5, 2006 9:59 AM
I was just chiming in -- and I probably shouldn't have addressed it specifically to you. Anyway, my point was that many academics spend their entire careers studying some aspect of religion. Rather than elitists, one could say they are devotees.
Lena at April 5, 2006 8:25 PM
Basically, a good proportion of American people just want religious groups to quit being so friggin' hateful and discriminatory against minorites. If Pat Robertson and his ilk take that request as being discriminatory against them, that's basically just a temper tantrum on their part. They're trying to obscure the point that their belief system is set up to be hateful, exclusionary, and discriminatory. They should quit their whining and remove the mote from their own eyes.
Harris Pilton at April 7, 2006 11:30 AM
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