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rfmcdonaldAlan Cooperman, writing in the Washington Post, is only one commentator among many who've observed Vision America's recent conference regarding the persecution allegedly suffered by Christians, that is to say particularly, evangelical Christians of a conservative bent.
On reading this, my first reaction was to dismiss this sentiment as entirely unfound. Sober second thought, and the reading of Don Feder's recent screed at Front Page Magazine, convinced me otherwise. It's simple, really. Imagine that you adhere to an ideology that was once the dominant ideology of public life, enforced by the state and seen as normative by the public at large. (You can imagine that it once was the dominant ideology, even if it wasn't. That's what the imagination is for.) Now imagine what it would feel like to have this ideology falls out of favour, with moral precepts no longer given official and general sanction and a mindset that, because of a certain necessary attachment to tradition, is widely criticized as out of date. Most critically, imagine that you can no longer be certain that you can keep your own children in line, that they may well decide to opt out entirely, and that if you do anything to try to stop them general opinion is more likely to be on their side than on yours.
In these circumstances, who wouldn't feel persecuted? At the very least, whether or not you agree with the moral principles associated with these ideologies you'd have to grant that they'd feel a certain sense of siege.
White evangelicals make up about one-quarter of the U.S. population, and 85 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. But three-quarters of evangelicals believe they are a minority under siege and nearly half believe they are looked down upon by most of their fellow citizens, according to a 2004 poll.
In a luncheon speech yesterday, DeLay took issue with the "chattering classes" who think there is no war on Christians.
"We are after all a society that abides abortion on demand, that has killed millions of innocent children, that degrades the institution of marriage and often treats Christianity like some second-rate superstition. Seen from this perspective, of course there is a war on Christianity," he said.
[. . .]
Another Jewish speaker, Michael Horowitz, told the conference that the "Christian decency of this country" saved him from becoming "a bar of soap" in Nazi Germany.
"You guys have become the Jews of the 21st century," said Horowitz, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, just before a false alarm interrupted his speech. Several attendees called the fire alarm suspicious, though a hotel spokesman said it resulted from a mechanical problem in a distant location.
On reading this, my first reaction was to dismiss this sentiment as entirely unfound. Sober second thought, and the reading of Don Feder's recent screed at Front Page Magazine, convinced me otherwise. It's simple, really. Imagine that you adhere to an ideology that was once the dominant ideology of public life, enforced by the state and seen as normative by the public at large. (You can imagine that it once was the dominant ideology, even if it wasn't. That's what the imagination is for.) Now imagine what it would feel like to have this ideology falls out of favour, with moral precepts no longer given official and general sanction and a mindset that, because of a certain necessary attachment to tradition, is widely criticized as out of date. Most critically, imagine that you can no longer be certain that you can keep your own children in line, that they may well decide to opt out entirely, and that if you do anything to try to stop them general opinion is more likely to be on their side than on yours.
In these circumstances, who wouldn't feel persecuted? At the very least, whether or not you agree with the moral principles associated with these ideologies you'd have to grant that they'd feel a certain sense of siege.
