Poor Heather Graham, her show “Emily’s Reasons Why Not,” was cancelled after just one episode. This crash and burn was due to an utterly unbelievable premise. Graham’s character, Emily, looked like Heather Graham but somehow couldn’t get any attention from men. The audience was asked to believe that a pretty, skinny, white girl had a disproportionately difficult time in the urban social world because it’s just so cruel and dismissive of pretty, skinny, white girls. Please. If you look like Heather Graham you’re going to get asked out. Furthermore, you’re going to get ogled, attended to, excused from every speeding ticket, and generally adored far and wide. Watching Graham’s character bemoan her poor lot in life as a beautiful and young object of desire didn’t just seem implausible, it was like watching someone with a dysmorphic perception disorder catalogue her hallucinations. Pretty girls are not ignored.
There must be a term for the need to feel like a victim. For whatever reason, people need to examine their place in the world and cast themselves as the recipient of misfortune. Someone is always keeping you down. Pretty girls have a painfully difficult social life. Millionaires fret endlessly over bills. And Christians are a disenfranchised minority in America. Wait… what?
A concise case study in self-inflicted victimization can be found at the new and oddly popular site, Christian-Underground.com. The name suggests intrigue. Is it a group of misfit intellectuals who meet to study the lost teachings of the Gnostic gospels? Perhaps it’s a secret fraternal organization like the Freemasons. Nope. It’s a site devoted to the poor, oppressed, beaten-down American Christian. If there’s one group that’s been driven underground in America, it’s Christians.
In explaining the title, ‘C.U. Admin’ says, “Being a Christian in modern America is becoming more and more a dangerous thing.” A dire prediction follows, “It is not hard to envision, near in the future, when publicly discussing issues of deeply held biblical belief, that Christians will be arrested for "Hate Crimes".”
A larger than life banner greets you front and center proclaiming, “I will pray when I want, where I want. School, work, the street, the mall, persecute me at your own peril.”
First of all, how is it “dangerous” to be a Christian in America? I’m serious. Explain the dangers to me.
And, it IS hard to envision an America in the near or distant future that arrests people for “discussing issues of deeply held biblical belief.” We still have a First Amendment and over the decades it has protected some pretty offensive expression. The KKK is a self-described hate group who thinks their deeply held beliefs on race are biblical. Most people are repulsed by those views but they’re still allowed to meet, propagandize, and march down Main Street. No one is arresting anyone for their views. This false threat is a delusion cooked in a very paranoid mind.
Then there’s that strange assertion regarding prayer. Please tell me who is keeping you from praying at school, work, the street, and the mall? There’s no law saying you can’t stop and pray. Should you decide you need a chat with the almighty before you make your selection at Cinebun by all means, pray away. Nordstroms may prohibit snake handling in stores but I’m pretty sure no one will stop you from praying. If muttering to God enhances your stroll in the park go right ahead. Of course, people in authority can’t coerce students and employees of different faiths to recite a prayer in unison. That’s because that really would constitute a violation of religious liberty. But no one is restricting anyone from praying.
Then there’s that odd pseudo-threat, “persecute me at your own peril.” Again, how in the world are you persecuted? The most powerful man in the free world claims to be one of you. You control majorities in every branch and at every level of federal and state government. Nearly all politicians must claim to be at least nominally Christian to be elected as well as profess the Bible as their favorite book despite their possible fondness for some other great work of literature. Oh, and 80+% of the population claims to be you. Pardon me but your persecution seems less than obvious.
And what am I in peril of should something I do or say be interpreted as persecution? Have the poor, down-trodden, unrepresented Christians in American been driven to such depths of desperation that one must assume they are heavily armed and unstable. Will the God that you need to pray to in the mall strike me dead if I disagree with your political agenda?
A further perusal of the underground Christianity site reveals the true source of this paranoia. It starts with the usual family this and family that. They’re very concerned with the “attacks” on families. But one would think those so concerned with the condition of families would write articles on effective money management to stave off economic tension between spouses. Or, perhaps, articles on how to keep the romance alive as the marriage ages might be helpful to the preservation of the family. No dice.
Of the 19 articles posted on January 31, 2006, eleven deal explicitly with the “homosexual agenda” and its “threat” to families. But gays don’t just threaten families. They cause you to lose your job! In one particularly enlightened piece titled, “America’s Unions Misguided on Moral Issues,” the author directly links automakers market woes with labor unions’ advocacy of non-discrimination policies. The reasoning goes something like this: because gay partners of employees get health benefits my Ford plant is laying off workers.
There it is. Did you catch it? That sums up nicely where this need to feel persecuted comes from. When perceived inadequacies in life are projected on an easily targeted group it absolves one of personal responsibility. If you are unable to find or keep a good job it isn’t because of your skills or work ethic, it’s because some group impeded your success. If your marriage falls apart it’s because the gay dudes living together across town somehow blocked your brain from remembering your wife’s anniversary. Whatever goes wrong in life it’s because the gays or the blacks or the Mexicans, or some other group gained rights and privileges. If marriage and employment were domains exclusive to your identity then your personal fulfillment would be unbridled. But instead gay people are persecuting you; preventing you from praying and making being a Christian “more and more a dangerous thing,” all because they don’t want to be fired just because they’re gay.
Christians are not persecuted in America. They’re not forbidden from practicing any tenet of their faith. They’re not underrepresented in government or the workforce. It’s not dangerous in anyway to be a Christian. Nobody’s marriage ever fell apart because someone else’s love was legally recognized. And no one is going to jail for praying. If there is something you don’t like about your life it’s up to you to correct it. Bashing another group, any other group, won’t fix your family or get you a promotion. If you lose your job examine yourself first before accrediting the loss to some minority. If straight marriage is on the decline, straight folks need to figure that out themselves. Reading Christians bitch about persecution in America is like listening to a pretty girl complain she can’t get a date. There’s a much more technical term for Christian persecution in America. It’s called “Bullshit.”
