Opinion

WALSH: Yes, ‘Easter Worshipper’ Was Intentional. Yes, It Matters. Here’s Why.

   DailyWire.com

When Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) tweeted about “art and architecture” during the Notre Dame fire, I defended her against the criticism it drew from Christians who accused her of pointedly ignoring the spiritual significance of the building. I thought the tweet was perfectly normal and acceptable, and I don’t really expect a Muslim woman to find any spiritual significance in a building meant for Christian worship. To my mind, that outrage — if we can call it an outrage — was overblown.

But “Easter worshippers” is a different thing entirely. Responding to the slaughter of hundreds of Christians during Easter attacks by radical Islamic terrorists, a number of prominent Democratic politicians chose to issue statements that glaringly omit any direct mention of the faith identity of the victims.

Barack Obama said this: “The attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity. On a day devoted to love, redemption, and renewal, we pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka.”

Hillary Clinton seemed to be working literally from the same script: “On this holy weekend for many faiths, we must stand united against hatred and violence. I’m praying for everyone affected by today’s horrific attacks on Easter worshippers and travelers in Sri Lanka.”

Several other Democrats latched onto this same phrase — “Easter worshippers.” If just one of them had gone this route, perhaps I could be convinced that it might be clumsy wording and nothing more. But it is simply impossible to believe that several significant Democrats would all independently and innocently think to refer to Christian victims in such a roundabout and obscure way.

I have been a Christian all my life and if I’ve ever heard the term “Easter worshipper,” or something like it, it would have been in reference to Christians who only go to church on Christmas and Easter. Generally we call those types “Christmas and Easter Christians” or “CEOs” (Christmas and Easter Only). But the general mass of people who show up to worship on Easter have always, in my experience, just been called Christians. It would be technically accurate to use a label like “Passover observers” in the place of “Jews” and “Ramadan commemorators” for “Muslims,” but I can’t imagine why anyone would be so unnecessarily vague and wordy. Unless, of course, there is some reason why they don’t want to explicitly acknowledge the group in question. And that appears to be the case here.

As it happens, we don’t need to wonder how the likes of Clinton and Obama would respond to a similar attack against Muslims. There was just such an attack a few weeks ago in New Zealand. Let’s look at their statements.

Obama: “Michelle and I send our condolences to the people of New Zealand. We grieve with you and the Muslim community. All of us must stand against hatred in all its forms.”

Clinton: “My heart breaks for New Zealand & the global Muslim community. We must continue to fight the perpetuation and normalization of Islamophobia and racism in all its forms. White supremacist terrorists must be condemned by leaders everywhere. Their murderous hatred must be stopped.”

This gives the game away. No rational person could fail to notice a stark contrast between these statements and the ones issued in response to nearly 300 butchered Christians on Easter Sunday. They both make sure to use the word “Muslim.” Clinton goes further and ropes in “Islamophobia” and “[w]hite supremacist terrorists.” Not only does she omit “Christian” from her comments on Sri Lanka, but she certainly says nothing about “Christophobia” and “Islamic terrorists.”

Are we supposed to believe that this is a mere coincidence? If so, is it also a coincidence that Hillary Clinton, who accidentally forgot the word “Christian” yesterday on Easter, did not forget the phrase “LGBT community” after the shooting at a gay club in Orlando three years ago? Of course not. There is a purpose behind this, and the purpose matters.

Christians are among the most persecuted groups on the planet. On a monthly basis, hundreds are murdered for their faith, hundreds more are locked in prison without just cause, and dozens of churches are burned or vandalized. Indeed, the most shocking thing about yesterday’s tragedy is how utterly routine it has become. It was only two years ago that over a hundred Christians were killed in explosions at Palm Sunday services in Egypt. Many Christians across the world know that they take their lives into their hands when they gather for worship. This fact — that Christians are not only a victim group, but are one of the most victimized groups — is extraordinarily inconvenient for Democrats, who have structured their whole agenda around their victimhood narrative. By their telling, racial minorities, women, homosexuals, and Muslims are The Victims while white men and Christians are The Bad Guys. This dichotomy would be thrown wildly out of balance and sent into disarray if Christians were admitted into the victim column — especially because they are so often victimized by Muslim extremists.

No, the Democrats can’t have that. So they usually ignore the genocide of Christians, and often enact policies that make it worse. And when they are forced, on the rare occasion, to acknowledge an attack of this sort, they will do it without saying anything that might give ignorant Americans the impression that there is a real systematic problem of Christians being constantly blown up and murdered by Muslim extremists. But the systematic problem is real, even if these conniving cowards won’t admit it.

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