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Persecution Complex: Why Religious Right Claims Of Hostility Toward Christians Ring Hollow
Just to be clear, this video is not about Christians in some place like Saudi Arabia, where it is actually illegal to worship as a Christian. It's about people here in the United States. Are Christians being persecuted in America? In a word: no. What's happening is that fundamentalists of Wildmon's ilk constantly try to use the power of the government to promote their narrow faith or foist it onto others. When they are told to stop, they start screaming about persecution. The Religious Right's constant whining about persecution is unfortunate because it diminishes the seriousness of the situation faced by people all over the world who really are persecuted for their faith. I was unnerved recently to read an article by Michael Peppard in Commonweal magazine detailing what Peppard called "religious torture" at Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. detention facilities. That's real persecution. Many Muslims are housed in these facilities, and there have been numerous reports that they have been forced to witness the desecration of copies of the Quran. Such abuse is especially difficult for faithful Muslims, who view the Quran as a type of living embodiment of their faith. They are commanded to treat it with the utmost respect. "[D]esecration of the Qur'an is alleged to have taken many other forms in U.S. detention facilities," writes Peppard. "Former detainees say it has been handled with disrespect by guards and interrogators - written in, ripped or cut with scissors, squatted over, trampled, kicked, urinated and defecated on, picked up by a dog, tossed around like a ball, used to clean soldiers' boots, and thrown in a bucket of excrement." Many of these accounts, he writes, have appeared in the foreign media or are buried in legal documents. But some have been recounted in books, and a few intelligence officers have admitted the practice in media interviews. In his book For God and Country, Capt. James Yee, a Muslim chaplain assigned to Guantanamo, asserted that abusing the religious faith of detainees was "Gitmo's secret weapon." Writes Peppard, "[D]esecration of the Qur'an and other forms of disrespect allegedly became routine." In a Swedish memoir, former Guantanamo detainee Mehdi Ghezali called the treatment of the Quran that he witnessed "great psychological torture." The situation was so bad, he said, that most of the Muslims kept there "wished they had never accepted [copies] in the first place." It's discouraging that the American government - the country that pioneered true religious liberty by separating church and state - would tolerate such abuses. Here's hoping the incoming administration puts a stop to them. Until then, reading Peppard's article is stark reminder of what real religious persecution is - and how pathetic Religious Right claims that they are being persecuted really are.
Persecution Complex: Why Religious Right Claims Of Hostility Toward Christians Ring Hollow | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
Persecution Complex: Why Religious Right Claims Of Hostility Toward Christians Ring Hollow | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
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