The phrase "campaign of hatred" is a strong one, and I worry about amplifying an already dangerous dynamic of recrimination on both sides of the culture wars. I don’t doubt that conservatives, Christian and otherwise, are sometimes guilty of rhetorical excess. Yet despite what we’ve been told, the most extreme political rhetoric of our day is being directed against traditional Christians by the left.
A man I know asked me the other day what I thought of Anne Coulter. I said I thought she was funny. He said he thought she was an enemy of society.
He's prone to exaggerated rhetoric, but he's not the only place you hear such stuff. The New York Times, and its columnist Frank Rich, are horrified that Christians would gather in a church to discuss national issues important to them. Rich uses terms like "lynching" and "mob" and "demonization" to describe a group of people gathered to hear speakers discuss their point of view about the judicial veto in the Senate. He summarizes by recounting -- as "the closest historical antecedent of tonight's crusade" -- a corrupt televangelist of the 1950s and 1960s.
In the meantime, when the Democrats wanted to have a rally protesting the Justice Sunday rally, they met in -- a Presbyterian Church.
In our time of political correctness and sensitivity, there are a handful of groups around that it's OK to insult -- back in the '90s it was the Serbs; since 2000 and possibly peaking in 2004 it was Bush and his supporters; and, as Kurtz points out, a rising drumbeat of rhetoric against traditional and conservative Christians.
No wonder Leftist Christians want to stand as far away from "fundamentalists" as possible.
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