REGARDING OPPRESSED CHRISTIANS:
MY LETTER TO THE EDITOR

There is something ludicrous about a privileged majority claiming discrimination, but certain American Christians love to play the victim card, complaining that their rights and traditions are being suppressed in favor of some suspect minority. Ms. H.’s November 9th letter to the editor is a recent example. She resurrects the nonsense regarding the so-called 9/11 Victory Mosque in New York and accuses the Obama White House of promoting a supposed War on Christmas, concluding that her "right" to her beliefs is being attacked.

I know of no movement to close churches, prevent their construction, or determine where they may be built; see no effort to ban Bibles, remove them from libraries, or create media circuses by burning them; there is no law preventing full-Gospel radio or TV from preaching "the Word" and soliciting tax-free contributions while doing so; Christians are still free to deposit pamphlets on my windshield or harangue me on the street about going to Hell because I hold the wrong beliefs; no one is trying to legislate who may or may not marry whom in their own denomination or as a civil matter; and no one is preventing them from displaying a crèche and a sign proclaiming "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" on their own private property.

They seem to think that this is their very own "Christian Nation" and that they should therefore receive special privileges including government assistance in promoting their faith with (carefully worded) prayers in schools, religious monuments and holiday displays on public grounds, their mottos emblazoned on our currency and courthouse walls, and their prayers opening government assemblies. They expect laws to enforce their particular beliefs regarding marital relationships, reproduction, and end-of-life decisions, and to allow them some sort of "right to discriminate" in housing or employment against those not of their creed because non-Christian Americans are apparently second-class citizens.

Some of their feelings are hurt by some people questioning their beliefs or some artists expressing their opinions of their faith in sometime crude terms. I certainly agree that we have become an impolite society, but you would think that they were about to be fed to the lions from their shrill outrage! How dare a Christian be mocked in their own nation! As for the President not promoting a Christian Christmas, perish forbid there is ever a Jewish or (horrors!) atheist occupant of the White House! They refuse to acknowledge that we are a pluralistic, multicultural, secular society and that most of the changes in our holiday expressions are business-driven, not part of any nefarious social or governmental plot.

It is high time that these insular and arrogant Christians grow up and recognize that this country belongs to all of us and that they have to learn to share. You get no more rights than do other beliefs, and they get no less than you.