Diminishing to asymptote

There's been a story in the news for the past week or so out of Afghanistan where Islamic clerics say a man who converted to Christianity should face the death penalty.

Closer to home, in St. Paul, there is a story of a different kind.

A small Easter display was removed from the City Hall lobby on Wednesday out of concern that it would offend non-Christians.

The display - a cloth Easter bunny, pastel-colored eggs and a sign with the words "Happy Easter" - was put up by a City Council secretary. They were not purchased with city money.

Tyrone Terrill, the city's human rights director, asked that the decorations be removed. Terrill said no citizen had complained to him.
....
The council president, Kathy Lantry, said the removal wasn't about political correctness.

"As government, we have a different responsibility about advancing the cause of religion, which we are not going to do," she said.

Am I saying executing a man for his religious beliefs is the same as removing Easter displays from public property? No. But I am asking, at what point does a willingness to kill to suppress to religious differences become indistinguishable from an intolerance of religion that cannot brook even the most innocuous of public displays? Just how far apart are they? Perhaps not as far as we might think. Is there not an absolute intolerance of Christianity at the heart of both?

I agree with Mitch Berg over at Shot In The Dark. Go ahead and offend people. If people are going to be "offended" by reminders (if the friggin' Easter Bunny can be considered a reminder) of the holiest day of one of the world's major religions, a religion that is by far practiced by the majority of people in this country, a religion that inspired the founders of this nation, if people are going to be offended by that then let them. These tender flowers need to learn the world is sometimes a cruel place.

Doug Bass, over at his excellent MOB aggregator, live-blogged a recent event with DFL candidate for the US Senate, Amy Klobuchar.

Here is one of the questions.

Question: One of the opponents are the religious right. How do you deal with them?

For those of you who think banning public displays of Christianity has anything to do with offending, reread that question. The same kind of people who ban public displays ask these kinds of questions. There is a belief that Christianity is a problem to be "dealt with." Klobuchar was all to eager to accept the premise of the question, though her answer was mystifying.

Answer: We need to turn that value on its head. Would Jesus be in favor of tax cuts for the rich?

OK, so it is completely unacceptable to have displays with religious themes on government property, but it is my Christian duty to give my money to the government? Can someone explain that logic to me? The government, who wants to decide for me how best to spend my charitable contributions, will not even try to inspire me with a few measly displays to faithfully serve my God by giving my purse to the government? We have truly gone through the Looking Glass.

Another example of a distinction without a difference caught my eye today. On the front page of the U of M campus newspaper, Minnesota Daily, there was an article about the visit of Peter Singer to the campus. The article referred to Singer as a "morality philosopher." I'm a little unclear as to the basis of Singer's "morality."

For one thing, he is the author of Animal Liberation, which helped jumpstart the animal rights movement. In the book he wrote about "speciesism", the discrimination on the basis of species. If Fido is as deserving of moral consideration as I am, rather than elevating the worth of animals it diminishes the value of human life.

And indeed, Singer also advocates the euthanasia of disabled children. The article in the Minnesota Daily was about a protest against these views.

Uriah McKinney, a protest organizer with the Disabled Student Cultural Center, said demonstrators protested Singer’s visit Thursday specifically because he advocates allowing parents the choice to euthanize disabled infants.

"He uses the language of pity to explain why his idea and why his utilitarian philosophy would be (to the benefit of) the child," he said. "But we believe that the pity model has been consistently rebuffed and rebuked by the disability rights community. We believe it is a false beginning point (for debating) who should live and who should die."

Utilitarianism is an ethics theory that promotes decisions that would maximize the amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.

Singer said his views on the value of the lives of disabled infants are no different from "the overwhelming majority of Americans," because of how frequently would-be parents decide to abort a pregnancy that would yield a significantly disabled child.

"They’re making exactly the same judgment about disability," he said.

I am sure these people are quite sincere. I bring this up only to point out that I'll bet many people who are so horrified at killing a disabled infant would be perfectly fine with letting that infant be killed a few weeks earlier while it was still in the womb.

What, really, is the difference? To me it is another example of people talking themselves into a position where they can justify beliefs that really aren't that much different than what even they would characterize as an extreme position.

And we could go on. Calling President Bush the "biggest terrorist in the world". Saying hostages freed in Iraq by soldiers putting their lives on the line were, rather, "released", etc...

The Democrats can make all the overtures they want to people with strong religious beliefs. They can extend the hand of friendship, but we see the shiv concealed in their other hand.