Here is a useful thought experiment. Pretend that yesterday’s French
terrorists were not radical Muslims but instead members of the Westboro
Baptist Church. How many news stories would a) omit their religious
affiliation or b) express concern that members of the Westboro Baptist
Church now faced anger and discrimination in their community? Of course
the answer is zero, and in fact we could expect a steady stream of
stories that examined the exact opposite and laid out in painstaking
depth how the twisted religious beliefs of the Westboro Baptist Church
members and the poisonous rhetoric of church leaders directly led to
this abominable event. Nightline and 20/20 would doubtless send
reporters to Kansas for lengthy pieces complete with videos of the
scary rhetoric to which the Westboro members are regularly exposed.
The most absurd thing, of course, is that the main reason Westboro is
(justly) hated by the media is their rhetoric on homosexuality and
homosexuals – rhetoric which is functionally indistinguishable from
radical forms of Islam from which these attacks spring. In fact, the
main difference between the two is that Westboro Baptist Church members
do not actually kill gay people whereas hundreds of gays and lesbians
are killed in Muslim dominated countries every year – in fact, the main
difference between a “moderate” Muslim country and an “extremist” one
where gay people are concerned is that in a “moderate” Muslim country
the government looks the other way while private citizens stone gay
people whereas in an “extremist” one the government does the stoning or
hanging themselves.
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