The Only Acceptable Discrimination

Just when you're convinced we have achieved the epitome of foolishness the Biden administration announces that Kamala Harris has been newly deputized as head of a national task force designed to combat Islamophobia, which evidently has now become rampant in our country. This new assignment follows her complete success in dealing with the border crisis, which is now, thankfully, according to the White House, nonexistent (the border, that is. The crisis remains).

The whole concept seems odd, given that broadcast, print and online media are currently filled with stories of violence against the Jewish community, with especially disgusting instances appearing on the campuses of some of our formerly elite universities: Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Stanford and all too many others. A growing number of wealthy Jewish and gentile donors have terminated their support for these schools, resulting in a loss of multi-millions in contributions.

An isolated and regrettable incident of Islamophobia in the Chicago area has garnered many headlines and even a phone call from the president; and has been branded a hate crime. To date it seems none of the anti-Jewish campus demonstrations have attained the status of hate, nor have there been many arrests, despite insurrectionist demonstrations at the very gates of the White House. It's paradoxical that the slaughter of Jews by a terrorist Islamist sect in Israel should generate sympathy for Muslims and animosity towards Jews but that’s the way things go in our currently upside down world.

Nevertheless President Biden, with the assistance of his team of advisors, has decided that there's an Islamophobia problem in the country and he has assigned our ever-entertaining Vice President to wipe it out. We wish her luck, as she will surely need it.

But the thought has entered my mind that there is another group of relatively harmless people in this country who also face discrimination and abuse on an almost daily basis, and in fact have been persecuted and threatened and killed for centuries. This group is known as Christians, followers of a man named Christ who lived and died many years ago. He claimed to be the Son of God and, according to his followers, proved it by rising from the dead. To date, no one else has done this.

This group is so hated that its members are regularly gunned down in places as diverse as Nigeria, China, and dozens of other countries. Their places of worship are routinely desecrated and even set on fire. In many Muslim-majority lands simply confessing to membership in the Christian faith is deserving of having one's head brutally removed. In other countries it is simply outlawed. Even here in the United States, Christians can be arrested just for praying quietly on the street near a baby-killing enterprise. Many of our top legislators openly despise people who adhere to this faith, accusing them of having a "dogma" that lives strongly within them.

However, it is rumored that President Biden himself is secretly a member of this Christian religion, although, if such is the case, he obviously hides his belief carefully, as no one could guess by his actions that he was a believer. If he was, I would think he might assign someone in his administration to be in charge of combating anti-Christian discrimination. Certainly not Harris, as she is already too busy, but perhaps former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton might be available for the job, as she has much expertise in dealing with "deplorables," and the people who persecute Christians make up the very definition of that word.

Those who have studied our nation's history maintain that the United States was founded by a cadre of believers in this Christian faith, a supposition that embarrasses leadership of this country today, as Christians are now widely seen as judgmental, ignorant and backward in both their ways and thinking. They retain belief in such outmoded antiquities as marriage, and even more ridiculously, insist that it be a union of only one man and one woman. They believe that children are a gift from God. Further, they maintain that these children exist in only two versions: male and female; and allege that God created them that way and that it's not a good idea to change the sex that they were born with.

They get the name of Christian from an ancient activist named Christ, who, as noted above, claimed to be the Son of God. He founded a popular mass movement and preached a Gospel of love and good works. The authorities saw his group as a threat and attempted to bring it to an end by killing him. But when his followers saw him come back to life they wanted to tell the whole world about him and have been doing so unto this very day.

While it is true that his followers have some curious beliefs, that is no reason for them to be persecuted. In the United States there are protections and legislation prohibiting discrimination against a great many minority groups: blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, also known as indigenous people, homosexuals, bi-, tran- and multiple-sexuals of all persuasions. The list is endless, to the point that it is quite possible for any truly creative person to achieve a protected status in this country by checking all the right boxes.

Except for Christians, it seems. They appear to be the one minority group that is universally judged to be not only deserving of its denigration, but also unworthy of any protection from those who wish to stamp it out of existence. Christians believe that their founder knew this was going to happen. He warned his original followers that they would be persecuted, arrested, thrown in jail, mistreated in myriad ways and even put to death with no hope of reward in this world. In return, he promised them something he called Eternal Life in another world with him and his Father.

Strange as this may sound, and despite all the persecution and hostility against them over two thousand years, there are millions of people who still believe in Christ as the risen Son of God. Perhaps nothing can be done about them, and perhaps they will always lurk among us, with or without our government and Hillary Clinton to protect them.