Item - Dr. George Tiller, while acting as head usher at his church is murdered by pro-lifer Scott Roeder.
Item - Dr. Barnett Slepian is murdered in his home by James Kopp, an anti-abortion activist.
Item - Eric Robert Rudolph is apprehended in western North Carolina. Rudolph is linked to a string of attacks on abortion clinics across the south as well as the bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.
Item - Timothy McVeigh and accomplices detonate a truck filled with homemade explosives outside the Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City, killing 186 people, including worker's children attending on-site day-care.
Item - Jim Adkisson enters Knoxville, TV Unitarian Church during a Children's Sabbath celebration and opens fire, killing two. Adkisson later said it was his intention to kill liberals and Democrats.
Item - After a bombing of part of the national government building in Oslo, a gunman, identified as a right-wing Christian, opens fire at a youth camp, killing 84 people.
As the bodies continue to mount, it might be necessary to do more than just wonder, in some vague way, about all this violence. It might be necessary to demand of those official Christian bodies - the Southern Baptist Convention, say - that they not only denounce specific acts of violence, but denounce the resort to violence as an illegitimate expression of political dissent, regardless of context. I would further demand that any individual, group, or body that donates money or time to an organization or body that promotes or defend terrorism in the name of Christianity be sent, immediately and without a hearing, to Guantanamo Bay Prison. Further, I insist that there be no civilian trials for any perpetrators of right-wing violence against churches, women's health centers, or public buildings; instead they should be tried as illegal enemy combatants.
If we're gonna be serious about terrorism, we should set aside security at airports, and install metal detectors at the entrance to any church who's pastoral leader has shown consistent rhetorical opposition to abortion, state or federal elected officials, gays and lesbians, or other minority groups. IRS protection in the form of tax-exempt status should be revoked on any such body that refuses to co-operate, because such lack of co-operation obviously means they are guilty.
At some point, the real enemy needs to be called out. This international conspiracy of right-wing Christianity clearly poses a threat to our way of life.
UPDATE: Pat Buchanan stands for Breivik:
Offering his take on the horrendous terrorist attacks in Norway, Buchanan joined the Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post in arguing that the far-right extremist perpetrator Anders Breivik may have had a valid point. Arguing that Breivik was bringing attention to his cause, “a Crusader’s war between the real Europe and the ‘cultural Marxists’ and Muslims,” Buchanan declares that, on the “climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world…Breivik may be right“This is from The Wall Street Journal.
There is reason to be deeply concerned about all these things, and to want to see them addressed forcefully by government leaders who care about the preservation of individual liberty and human rights. But this cause has been seriously damaged by Anders Behring Breivik.And The Jerusalem Post:
In Norway, to speak negatively about any aspect of the Muslim faith has always been a touchy matter, inviting charges of "Islamophobia" and racism. It will, I fear, be a great deal more difficult to broach these issues now that this murderous madman has become the poster boy for the criticism of Islam.
While there is absolutely no justification for the sort of heinous act perpetrated this weekend in Norway, discontent with multiculturalism’s failure must not be delegitimatized or mistakenly portrayed as an opinion held by only the most extremist elements of the Right.I just love it when right-wingers circle the wagons around one of their own.
