Christianists Opposed to Islamists: Pot, Meet Kettle

All over the United States, radical Christians are pushing private organizations and public institutions to bow to Christian traditions under the guise of religious freedom. The truth, however, is that the ideology of such Christians accepts no sovereign over the world except their god, and so laws which fail to uphold their beliefs are not recognized as valid. This has been called "creeping theocracy" — that is, getting organizations and institutions to change policies so everyone ends up following Christian traditions whether they want to or not.

Curiously, some of these Christians have started to complain about Muslims who, they allege, are doing the same thing. I'm surprised they don't file a trademark or copyright infringement lawsuit.

All over the United States, radical Muslims are pushing companies to bow to Islamic law known as Sharia. They are doing this under the guise of religious freedom, but the political and cultural ideology of Islam recognizes only Allah as the supreme ruler over the world. ...What Muslims are doing has been referred to as “creeping Sharia” – that is, getting companies, communities and states to change policies in order to force everyone to obey Sharia law, a totalitarian system of regulations that govern Islamic theocracies.

Source: Traditional Values Coalition (source: Pandagon)

Gee, that sounds familiar. Where have I heard that before?

Efforts are already underway here in America to introduce Sharia enclaves in some communities.  In these enclaves, Constitutional concepts like one person/one vote would be replaced by Sharia concepts which values a woman’s vote at half that of a man.  In many instances, Sharia law allocates rights based on gender and religion (Islam is the only legal religion) rather than individual rights.

Whereas the Christianity of Lou Sheldon is completely egalitarian when it comes to gender — both men and women and completely equal without any differentiation in rights, roles, or expectations. Sure. The Traditional Values Coalitions then lists a number of cases which it claims are examples of "creeping Shariah," but what's amusing is how each one can be compared to similar cases involving Christians.

They complain about Muslim cab drivers not wanting to transport passengers with alcohol because that would mean "cooperating in sin," but I don't see them complaining about Christian ambulance drivers who are permitted to not transport sick women if it means taking them to where they can obtain an abortion. They complain about kids being taught about the basics of Islam during a single lecture, but I don't see them complaining about entire courses designed to teach students the Bible from an evangelical Christian perspective.

So now that a religious minority is trying to do some of the same things which Christians have long been doing — some legal, some not — some of these Christians are outraged. They'll support Christians who engage in such behavior and tactics, but they'll oppose any Muslims or others who try to do anything similar. Is this hypocrisy? Only to the extent that these Christians have used neutral-sounding language and arguments to defend or justify their positions.

The truth, though, is that they such arguments were only ever for the consumption of courts and outsiders; their true agenda and motivation has been the imposition of Christianity on the entire country. When we start from that position, their support for Christians and opposition to non-Christians is completely consistent rather than hypocritical.