Rod Dreher wonders , “Does the secular left realize it has a civility and tolerance problem too?”
It deeply annoys liberals to hear conservative Christians complain about how persecuted they are. They’re right, in a strictly limited way. It’s always unattractive to see people wallow in victimhood, which can become a crutch for excuse-making and self-pity. That said, sometimes people,even people we don’t like, really are victims of bigotry. Conservatives,especially conservative Christians, know that we are held to a double standard on these things — a contradiction of which many self-righteous liberals are unaware.
Having spent 20 years working in newsrooms, which tend to be populated with moralists who take a preacher’s pride in reforming society, I heard my share of nasty remarks about Christians — the kinds of things that would never be said about Jews or Muslims. Once I was in a news meeting in which a very senior editor made a vicious joke about Christians. He apparently felt safe enough to say what he did because he assumed everyone present agreed with him. And he was probably right.
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