Whenever the idea of Christian persecution in America comes up in a conversation with a liberal, their first reaction is often a sarcastic snort and a condescending eye roll. “Persecution? Of a group of people who are in the majority and vocally active in everyday life? That’s dumb.” This is a red herring. It’s true that persecution in America is unlike persecution in other parts of the globe, but that does not make the persecution that we deal with any less real. We don’t deal with the threats of imminent death or worries of our churches being attacked by jackbooted thugs… but we do deal with government directed discrimination and media driven stereotyping of who we are.
And if you don’t believe that persecution against Christians exists in America? Then you haven’t read this story yet.
The teachers union contract in Ferndale, Michigan which has been in place since 2011 and was recently renewed specifically (and I mean SPECIFICALLY) discriminates against Christians. Check it out.
“Any teacher may apply for a vacancy in a position considered to be a “Promotion” as defined in Section 2 above… Special consideration shall be given to women and/or minority defined as: Native American, Asian American, Latino, African American and those of the non-Christian faith.”
Yeah. There’s no such thing as persecution of Christians in America.
The school district responded by saying, basically, that they had no idea the offending language was in their union contract. They also said that the language is “antiquated” and dates back to 1979.
“Earlier this week, Ferndale Public Schools learned of antiquated language in employee contracts that we somehow missed when recently bargaining contracts,” Ferndale Public Schools spokeswoman Shelley Rose said in an e-mail. “This language dates back to at least 1979, and is not in compliance with current legislation. Fortunately, the district also has newer and strong anti-discrimination language in the contracts and has never, in our known history, enacted this now out-of-date language.”
“Discovery of this antiquated language and the ensuing media storm is embarrassing to the district, but has afforded us an opportunity to update our contracts to reflect current law and long-time anti-discrimination practices,” Rose said. “Ferndale Public Schools takes the issue of discrimination seriously and has acted swiftly to resolve this unfortunate contract language issue.”
Somehow this idea of the language being antiquated is supposed to be of some comfort. What it really means is that Ferndale County has codified discrimination in their union contracts for 35 years.
There is a deeper discussion to be had here, though. While I do believe that the county was “generally” unaware of this clause in their contract (as it opens them up to litigation) – I also believe it is instructive to their general belief system. This is the great paradox of the liberal mindset. They speak of freedom, equality, justice and fairness… but the first thing they do when they get control is STACK THE DECK in favor of groups they appreciate more than others.
The Left likes to believe that they are some force for good carrying a banner for justice in an unjust world. The problem is that whenever they attempt to mete out justice for one group, they end up creating injustice for another. Can you ever really bring justice like this? What sense does it make to force children to pay for the crimes (or perceived crimes) of their parents? In this case the crime committed by Christians is simply being part of a majority group… how is it just or fair to discriminate against us for that?
It’s not.
American Christians are being persecuted, and no the persecution we face is not life or death… but it is real and it is unjust.
