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December 31, 2010

In America, If Christians Were Treated Like Muslims - Then ...

As Gary Bauer effectively points out in his interesting piece at Human Events, contrary to what the liberal progressives claim and wish us to believe ... it is in fact Christians, not Muslims, who increasingly encounter cultural elites who are hostile to their beliefs and values, yet Christians are not likely to ever be treated like Muslims by America's elites because Christianity can be attacked without fear of retribution. The Christian response to insult and attack -- "to turn the other cheek" -- unlike the knee-jerk call to violence of the Islamists. And compiling the problem for Christians, the left-wing elites and radical Islamists are united in the common cause of upending the Judeo-Christian culture and roots of American society.

Bauer writes:

Few Americans would deny that Judeo-Christian beliefs and values informed the Founding of this country and that they continue to shape much of American life today. Nor would many of us deny that Americans who embrace Islamic values are a distinct minority here.

I raise these two facts because of an emerging reality: that, in a variety of contexts, American Muslims are treated better than American Christians. That might seem like a bizarre assertion, so think about it in another way: What if the Christians were treated like Muslims in America, and Muslims like Christians?

If Muslims were treated like Christians in America, Muslims would have to tolerate the defamation of their holiest images in our national museums, acts which would be called "artwork" -- and, if particularly provocative, even given taxpayer-funded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. They would also have to accept Korans being burned and thrown into toilets, which instead of inciting worldwide outrage and retribution would provoke a collective shrug of the shoulders.

If Muslims were treated like Christians, Muslims would be mocked by late night TV talk show hosts and lampooned in crude cartoon parodies. If Christians were treated like Muslims, conspicuous Christianity would be celebrated by our elites as a sign of our diversity and open-mindedness, not disparaged as an embarrassment, a nuisance and a breach of the law.

If Christianity were treated like Islam, our students would be taught a white-washed version of Christian history, with the troubling bits miscast or omitted from textbooks and lesson plans.

If Christianity were treated like Islam, if an evangelical Christian committed an evil act in the name of his faith, he would be portrayed in the media as a deviation from, not a personification of, the Gospel message. Meanwhile, our political and media elites would hasten to assure the public that evangelical Christianity is a religion of peace and that the vast majority of evangelical Christians do not support terrorism.

If Christianity were treated like Islam in America, our president, a professed Christian, would proudly attend Christian-themed dinners and events while skipping Ramadan dinners, not vice versa. And Muslim politicians would go out of their way to assure people that their faith would not affect their policy-making.

If Christianity were treated like Islam, Christmas and Easter would be publicly celebrated for what they are - the signature events of Christianity, marking the birth and the death and Resurrection of Christ - not stripped of all their theological meaning and transformed into secular holidays devoted to crass consumerism.

Interestingly, in spite of the fact that most Americans know that Islam is an expansionist, imperialist, totalitarian ideology that easily lends itself to violence and intolerance - and history attests to this - giving Americans good reason to be wary of Muslims ... and despite claims of the liberal elites that Muslims are persecuted in America ... the facts show that there have been more hate crimes against Christians than against Muslims: 1,606 hate crime offenses motivated by religious bias in 2008. A closer look: 65.7 percent of them were committed against Jews. Against Muslims? 7.7 percent (4.7 percent of hate crimes in 2008 were motivated by anti-Catholic bias. Another 3.7 percent were anti-Protestant.)

Cross posted from Hyscience

Posted by Richard at December 31, 2010 12:08 PM

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