Liberal Intolerance

When talking about religious matters, liberals like to claim the moral high ground of "tolerance". Liberalism, they claim, is a big tent where all religions are tolerated, while the Republican party consists entirely of nutso fundamentalists. But in reality, the opposite is true. Liberalism is intolerant of Christianity.

Perhaps it is not fair to say that liberals dislike all Christianity. There is one variety they embrace-- a lukewarm, Laodicean version of Christianity without absolutes and no message beyond "Be Nice." Most, perhaps all, leftist religious thinkers subscribe to this concept of religion. In this view, all religious belief, no matter how absurd, is equally valid. The only religion that is exempted from this viewpoint is atheism (look it up, atheism is arguably a religion). But they display a great deal of intolerance to any Christian who dares to say that his moral beliefs are superior to those of anyone else.

"Intolerant", is a term that means whatever the person using it wants it to mean (much like "offensive" or "hate speech"), so a definition of this term is in order. "Intolerant", according to dictionary.com, means: "not tolerating or respecting beliefs different from one's own."

It is importance not to confuse "intolerance" with honest disagreement. For example, if a Catholic and Protestant disagree on a passage from Luke, that is simply normal discourse. If, however, either side engages in generalized ad hominen attacks or misrepresentations against the other, that (to my mind) represents intolerance.

Now that we have finished that semantics digression, let's look at a few examples of liberal religious intolerance. It is obvious that most liberals hate (and I don't think that is too strong a word) fundamentalist and evangelical churches. It is difficult to find any liberal article or blog post discussing these groups that does not describe their positions as "hateful" or some such strongly negative adjective.

It seems contrary to their stated position of "tolerance", or even basic respect, to condemn someone's honestly held moral beliefs as hateful, unless supporting evidence is given to back this claim up. Given that most liberals claim to believe in the Bible, and given that the Bible's position on many ethical issues is one that most liberals would just as soon ignore, it rarely is.

But it is not just fundamentalism which falls afoul of prominent liberals. The Catholic Church comes in for some bashing as well. It should be noted that one of the most common leftist criticisms of the Church, which is that it is responsible for African poverty and hunger because of its stand on birth control, is completely intolerant and enormously unfair. If you really think that the Church relaxing its birth control ban would somehow improve conditions in Africa, then you are obviously completely ignorant of the most basic facts about the situation. 15% of Africans are Catholic, leaving 85% free to use birth control, condoms, or whatever the UN decides is best. Is there a significant difference in the AIDS rate, or the poverty rate, among the two populations? No. This is an example of the tendency, so common among liberals, to blame religion for everything undesirable.

Pope Benedict XVI stands firm in advocating traditional morality. The left responds with vicious and baseless attacks. For example, the powerful and influential Daily Kos features an encyclopedia (there is a special Kos encyclopedia, modelled along Wikipedia) entry on Benedict XVI. It features three paragraphs (I guess nobody reads or edits dKosopedia). One of them accuses Benedict XVI of being a member of Hitler's Youth, the other takes a shot at the Church's teachings on celibacy. While this entry was probably written by some moronic Kos reader who was convinced that his parents warped his intellectual development because they attended church when he was kid and made him go even though he told them he was a freethinker and he still hasn't recovered, the Daily Kos is still responsible for the content of their site. If they permit that sort of thing on their encyclopedia, they are responsible for it.

If that example isn't convincing enough, the slightly more sane Huffington Post isn't above the odd shot at Pope Benedict. Blogger Paul Krassner, in his @$$-holes of the Week column (liberal blogs are so family friendly) referred to Pope Benedict as a "bigoted nut." Another HuffPo blogger, Angela Bonavoglia, wrote a post titled Catholic Bishops Agree -- Reluctantly, Reluctantly! -- to Treat Rape Victims. The post equates a belief in the immorality of abortion with a refusal to care for rape victims.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, another liberal blog post, this one from the Daily Kos, further reveals the anti-Catholicism of the left. This post suggests that Hitler was a Catholic in good standing who was never excommunicated until his death. This is relies on the myth that the Church stood silent while Hitler committed his evil deeds. While fully refuting this myth is beyond the scope of this post, it should suffice to say that after Pius XII died, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was the first world leader to send condolences to Vatican, thanking him for his efforts to help the Jewish community.

I did not even bother to include vicious, hateful, ignorant, anti-relious statments by the likes of Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, or Sam Harris, who are not unanimously embraced by all liberals. (I really couldn't put Christopher Hitchens on that list since he is probably revered more by the Right than the Left, his virulent anti-theism notwithstanding. This is all stuff written by mainstream commenters on blogs enthusiastically embraced by all members of the Democratic party. Often, leading Democratic politicians post on these blogs.

The Left's hatred and intolerance for conservative Christianity should not ignored. Whether it is accusations of "hate", lies, or slanders against religious figures, liberalism cannot claim to be tolerant of all religious and moral beliefs.