When the Homily is about Immunology

Equal Protection

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Muslims around the world on Thursday to resist calls for violence from people outraged by a report that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran.

Story HERE.

"I want to speak directly to Muslims in America and throughout the world. Disrespect for the Holy Koran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be tolerated by the United States," she said. "Disrespect for the Holy Koran is abhorrent to us all."

Hmmmm...how very nice. Do you think we might extend such intolerance of disrespect toward religion to include Christianity? The interrogators, it is said, "had placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet."

Imagine if you will what the Muslim world would think if the US government sponsored some artwork like "Piss Koran" in which a copy of the Koran is pictured immersed in a jar of urine and cow's blood (or pig's blood). Or if a local state or city government funded art gallery publically displaying a "painting" entitled "The Holy Prophet" that showed him with an elephant dung nose and being surrounded by genitalia images clipped from pornographic magazines. Ahhh, the wonderful world of the NEA funded by our tax dollars.

So what's it going to take to someday hear a government official say - without being laughed out of office - "I want to speak directly to Christians in America and throughout the world. Disrespect for the Holy Bible, the Saints, or Jesus Christ is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be tolerated by the United States...Disrespect for Christianity is abhorrent to us all."

In conversation about this earlier, someone reminded me: "Well, James, you have to understand that we are involved in a Middle Eastern conflict and we are trying to play a PR game with the Muslim world."

Yes, of course, I understand this. But Rice's statement is no less striking to me. I do not recall any amount of outreach or extreme sensitivity toward Orthodox Christian communities when we had a liberal democrat bombing Serbia. If a serbian soldier had been captured and the interrogator had flushed an icon down the toilet, do you think we would have flinched at all? Why do you suppose that is? Well for starters, nobody got killed during the riots that never happened over the NEA sponsored "Piss Christ" or the New York City sponsored elephant dung "Virgin Mary."

So, why worry about officially sanctioning disrespect for Christianity? (shrugging shoulders) Jesus told us to expect it, didn't He?

WARNING: Speaking from personal experience, flushing anything down a toilet other than what is normally intended to be flushed down a toilet (e.g. fecies, urine, toilet paper - and in more than a handful of cases such materials also incorporates government sponsored art) is a very bad idea. I am sure the interregator who tried to get the Koran down regretted it when his CO made him fix the inevitable problem. Don't try this stunt at home...these are trained professionals.