As bad as Christian Privilege is, it's still not as bad as Christian Surpemacism, an ideology based around the belief that Christians not only should be privileged and honored in society, but should in fact reign supreme over all others. It's difficult to gauge just how popular Christian Supremacism really is because believers seem more reluctant to express it than the mere desire to be privileged. I suspect, though, that it may be more common than we realize because of the way it sometimes comes out in such an unapologetic, unselfconscious manner.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has filed suit against Greece, NY for holding sectarian Christian prayers before town meetings. The practice is unambiguously unconstitutional, but the reactions of some residents are very interesting:

Please understand that the real issue is getting publicity for people and their anti-Christian agenda. I attend Faith Temple Church in Brighton and this is no different from when they didn't want the new expanded Christian based church expanding in THEIR town. I appreciate that the Jewish and atheiest can come together for something! The funny thing is they're both nonbelievers in Christ.

I get that, but when people around you are believers and they are in power please respect YOUR place. When I come to Brighton I understand MY place as a Christian male. You need to realize in Greece we don't accept atheism or Judaism as the guiding faith in our town. We have predominately Christian places of worship throughout the town. Respect it or leave it.

I am sick of this crap, we aren't Holland or Londonistan or any other place where Christians are made to feel dirty for their religion, this is America! We were founded by a country of white protestant Christian males, and as such are guided by that. I didn't complain all the time I had to spend in SS class learning about the holocaust ad nauseam. I respect what happened and hope it never happens again, BUT I don't call the ACLU and complain my children have to learn it and I am offended or whatever. Find these women and find out what they're real problem is and lets solve it, but it isn't prayer.

Source: Democrat & Chronicle forums (via Unscrewing the Inscrutible, emphasis added)

Could there be a clearer demand that atheists sit down, shut up, and respect the privileged place of Christians in society? Especially interesting is the inclusion of Jews here because Jews are the traditional religious "outsiders" in American society. They, too, have been expected to sit down, shut up, and let Christian majorities give their religion special privileges without complaining. Eventually Christians came to realize that Jews shouldn't be treated as inferiors — the Holocaust had something to do with that, which might explain why this author didn't like learning so much about it — but the same realization has yet to occur with respect to atheists.

I also think it's really interesting how demands for equality — and for Christianity to not be privileged or promoted by the government — is an "anti-Christian agenda" and equated with making Christians feel "dirty" about their religion. I wonder how this author thinks non-Christians are made to feel when they see how their religion has a second-class status? Then again, I suppose it's unlikely that they put themselves in the position of imagining how others feel at all. The author "accepts" his place, which is convenient since he's promoting males and Christians as deserving special privileges. Why is it that the privileged classes are so ready to "accept" their place in society?

Readers shouldn't miss the veiled threat that appears at the end: the women should be "found" and their problem "solved" (by white Christian men, I suppose), but the solution isn't "prayer." No explicit threat is made, but it's hard to read it as anything but a threat — white male Christians have not, in America's past, sought out uppity minorities to "solve" their "problem" with flowers and friendship. Quite often, it's been with a short rope and a strong branch.