Big news today! I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve published my first original column for the Guardian, the venerable progressive newspaper, in their Comment is Free opinion section.
The column is titled “‘Help, help, I’m being repressed!’: How conservatives make a mockery of the oppression of religious minorities. It concerns those American Christian conservatives who shriek that their religious liberty is being cruelly denied, while steadfastly ignoring those who experience genuine persecution around the world. Here’s an excerpt:
The Yazidi, who practice an ancient syncretistic faith derived from Zoroastrianism, are just one example of how various religious minorities are under threat. In Myanmar, despite the country’s transition to democracy, a Muslim community called the Rohingya has been herded into squalid camps and deprived of medicine and other necessities, even facing mob violence. Meanwhile, the Middle East’s Christian population has been virtually wiped out in the chaos unleashed by the American invasion of Iraq and the convulsions of the Arab Spring.
Contrast that with the exaggerated sense of victimhood on full display recently in Washington DC when former presidential candidate Rick Santorum debuted the “documentary” One Generation Away. This film uses interviews with dozens of prominent Christian conservatives – from staunch Catholics to evangelical Protestant – to make the case that religious freedom in America is on the brink of complete destruction.