Hastert Plays Politics With Holidays

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You're being more than a little disengenious by claiming that this is the "best" that American Christians can point to in the way of "persecution" (probably better called discrimination).

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How, specifically, are Christian's discriminated against in this country?

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Have you read Persecution? I've only skimmed a little once when I was in a book store.

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Like you, I've only read parts. Most of his complaints were your run of the mill right-wing complaints: pro-lifers are opposed by liberals, popular TV has lots of gays but not very many Christians, feminists don't like Christian fundamentalism -- and a bevy of silly nonsense issues like the subject of the OP.

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But some of the examples (assuming their true) rise above this Christmasgate, wouldn't you agree?

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I agree some of what Limbaugh writes about constitute more 'serious' debates than how we refer to trees; but Limbaugh's complaints frequently point to legitimiate political discourse. He had a rather lengthy rant about how pro-life justices are strongley opposed by feminist groups like NARAL and the like. Is it oppressive that feminists and pro-choice advocates don't like fundamentalist Christians? Do their disagreements constitute persecution? It's what the rest of us call legitimate debate and pluralism.

In other words, what Limbaugh frequently cites in his examples of 'bias against Christians' is this: People don't agree with conservative Christians, and the government/media/popular entertainment brokers don't cater to their every desire. That doesn't constitute descrimination.

When gay people complain about being persecuted, they refer to how gay kids are beat to death, then tied to a car and dragged down the street.

When Christians complain about being persecuted, they're talking about how their local school board didn't let Junior's class sing "Noel".

I realize it irks convervative Christians that Bravo has Queer Eye for the Straight Guy marathons but not one hour devoted to Pastor's Eye for the Sinful Guy , but welcome to the world of profit-driven television and popular culture. Limbaugh should take his complaints to Adam Smith -- but then again, as we all know, Limbaugh's praying at Smith's altar, too -- so he uses liberals a scape-goat when capitalism and the market fail to kowtow to Christians.

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The title is sensational, meant to sell books.

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Like, of course, almost every single other right-wing complaint about Christians being discriminated against. Almost uniformely sensationalized and exaggerated to the point where there are many people here in this forum trying to subtly defend that Christians are indeed treated unfairly by the society at large -- when in fact, their examples frequently center around trivial nonsense of the most inconsequential nature.

The kicker is, of course, that Christians don't hesitate to remind you that they're a super-majority in this country, so when challenged about whether or not we should put some 2 ton Ten Commandment statue in front of a courthouse, they're won't think twice about reminding they're opponents that "Hey, America is a Christian nation -- remember, 90% of Americans are god-fearing Christians -- so let's keep the statue there, because it's what the majority of us want" etc. etc.

So the right-wing narrative goes as follows: Society-at-large frequently discriminates against Christians in the most offensive of ways -- a society that is made up of an uber-majority of Christians. I can't make heads or tails of this contradictory nonsense, and I don't think many can, either.

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I don't know of any American Christians claiming persecution on the same level of some abroad or of the past, so your argument appears to be a strawman.


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So long as we agree that the complaints of the conservative Christian crowd are over-sensationalized and deliberately exaggerated for the purposes of profit and/or political demagoguery -- and we all realize it -- then fine, I'm constructing a strawman. But since it seems like there's plenty of people who truly and sincerely believe Christians are persecuted in America, I don't think this is much of a strawman.