Quoted for truth.
And honestly, the heavy lift that it often takes to get even the most self-aware Christians to concede that any given element of this might be true or significant, let alone that any of it might implicate them in problematic behavior, makes it almost not worth the discussion in the first place (as long as, as a non-Christian, one can count on being mostly left alone).
I mean, the other big spreader of nasty anti-Islamic propaganda is the GOP. Before I left Facebook, for some reason I was getting regular posts from an NC County GOP local, and it was just constant anti-Islamic hatred. There is far and away more anti-Islamic hate spewed in the US than there is for any other religion, despite (or, rather, because) of the small numbers of practitioners.
If you just go by page count, it does. I used to okay a game where i would open the (Jewish) Bible, the New Testament, and the Koran at random, stick my finger on the page, and read what it said. A random snip of the Bible is likely to be some technical detail about the wood used to build the temple, or the ark. A random snip of the new testament is likely to be some anecdote about Jesus’ life. And a random snip of the Koran is surprisingly likely to tell you to kill the infidels.
That being said, no one interacts with religious texts that way except as a game. We have entire Christian churches in the US based on the idea that wealth is good. (Pretty much the opposite of what the texts say.) The old testament is riddled with death penalties for minor stuff, but organized Judaism has pretty much eschewed the death penalty for centuries. The New testament doesn’t mention abortion, and the old testament mandates it in a text about testing a wife’s fidelity (numbers 5:12-31), and treats the killing of an unborn fetus as a property crime (Exodus 21:22) yet large chunks of Christianity teach that abortion is murder. I assume that everyone picks and chooses from what their fundamental documents support. In fact, i don’t believe any religion can become a major religion without having enough breadth to support many different perspectives.
In other words:
Christianity gets more flack in the US than other religions, because its followers impose more pain on the rest of us than the followers of any other religion. Because it’s the default, and there are so many nominal Christians here.
Fur instance, Gyrate is 100% correct here:
I regularly read about murders and other acts of violence committed by Christians because some gay dude or trans woman offended the religious beliefs of some closed-minded Christian. Because yes, you can read that into the Christian Bible, if that’s your goal. Really easily.
Of course there are people committing murder because of their Christian religious beliefs. I’m sure you’ve heard of people who work in abortion clinics being murdered.
The difference is what I noted earlier. When somebody like John Salvi murders people because of his religious beliefs, people think “Wow, John Salvi is crazy.” They don’t think “Wow, Christians are crazy.”
But when Cherif and Said Kouachi murder people because of their religious beliefs, a lot of people do think “Wow, Muslims are crazy.”
Christian murderers are seen as individuals. Muslim murderers often are seen as members of a group.
Not to nitpick your comment too much, but one difference is that men are born men, women are born women, straights are born straight, blacks are born black, etc. Whereas many Christians today started out as non-religious people, or people of a different religion, and then later converted to Christianity - so they still know and remember what it was like to be a non-Christian.
Either that, or they live as a minority in many regions - and yet many of them are still as diehard.
Christians are a minority in South Korea and Taiwan. That hasn’t stopped some Christians there from being just as obnoxious or domineering as Christians in the United States.
The best I can find, in the US, is that 3.6% of US adults entered Christianity as an adult, whereas 80% of US adults grew up in the Christian religion. So, a little less than one in 20 US Christians have any experience knowing what it’s like to be non-Christian in a Christian society. Whether that counts as “many” is arguable; but it’s a tiny minority of Christians.
To answer the question in the OP, yes, there’s a double standard, in the same way that there’s a double standard in the way white people, men, and any other dominant group is treated.
So what? It’s always more acceptable to punch up than down, since punching down is pretty cruel and can do real damage to a minority or non-dominant member of a society.
Not to diminish the significant amount of hate crime aimed at Jews in America, but that statistic is measuring attacks, not rhetoric. (FTR there are also half as many Muslims in the US as Jews, but that’s not statistically significant here.)
A reminder that the right-wing media en masse (very much including the mainstream outlets) have been spewing fairly constant anti-Muslim propaganda for decades, right up to the current pantytwisting over Mayor Mamdani attending 9/11 remembrance gatherings. And it’s been joined in that by right-wing politicians right up to Trump, who have on many occasions attempted to use the power of their offices to ban or persecute Muslims and Islam as a religion. In both those regards, hatred towards Islam and its adherents is far greater than the same against Judaism and its adherents in recent years.
Of course, the ongoing increasing validation of fascism by the right has also empowered the actual Nazi throwbacks in the US to ramp up their anti-Jewish attacks. And the actions of Israel have likewise caused extreme anger on the left toward the Israeli government and its supporters. But neither are actively supported by any mainstream media (if anything, the media seems to support cracking down on anti-Israel protesters), whereas anti-Muslim sentiment continues to be rife.
But it wasn’t about “avoiding punching down;” as the above-listed QueerMajority article pointed out, this deference towards Islam had gotten to the point that even the clear violence or ill treatment of Islam towards LGBT people was downplayed or hushed as a topic because it was considered Islamophobic to highlight it.
It’s not “deference towards Islam” and it’s weird to characterize it as such. It’s a wariness of appearing to support Islamophobia in the act of condemning homophobia. To quote the same article:
It’s very much a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation, but it’s not due to “deference” at all.
But, it’s all of a piece, right? A persecuted minority like LGBT writers might not want to dump on another persecuted minority like Muslims here in the US.
I don’t understand how “Islam” can treat anyone. Did you mean “Muslims”, meaning “some extreme Muslims”? Because “Christianity”, for example, isn’t writing anti-trans legislation in the US, it’s being done by some Christians. Many Christians, even whole denominations, are fine with trans folks. No one is saying “Christianity is writing anti-trans bathroom laws.”
And in fact those using their religions to justify persecution of LGBT people often have more in common with each other (despite the differences in overall faith) than they do with others ostensibly of the same faith.
What word or phrase do you feel would be more accurate? Special consideration perhaps? You’re not wrong though, I do think think there’s some fear about appearing Islamophobic, and being a bigot, whereas most people aren’t worried about appearing anti-Christian.
I mean, that article was interesting. Some of the oppressed opponents of Islamic homophobia were carrying signs like “Islamophobia is an oxymoron.” The author was clearly on their side, when they were asked to leave an LGTBQIA parade. Other examples of this supposed hypocrisy included a single person who told a group of white hippies singing folk songs in opposition to homophobic Muslims that they were being colonialists and Islamophobes.
Is this something that happens sometimes? Sure. There are assholes everywhere. But is this seriously interfering with efforts to address homophobia in some Muslim communities? I’m just not seeing strong evidence.
This is all basically true, but a bit off my point.
Any kind, type, or sort of people can be obnoxious anywhere for any number of reasons. Domineering, though? That the default privileged group is straight white male Christians has been true for all 237 years of America’s existence. (1776 created a rebellion, not a nation.) They controlled laws, culture, social status, employment, education, and even holidays. All Others had to fit into whatever slots were made available for them.
Much of today’s right-wing rebellion reflects the simple fact that the Others are no longer performing obeisance to the default. They want their privileged status to continue indefinitely. The default’s power has been somewhat reduced but still dominates. Look at any picture of a Trump cabinet meeting.
Mocking those above you by arbitrary default is always allowable. The top telling the rest to shut up should be mocked hardest of all.
There is an enormous gulf of difference between “non-religious, but culturally Christian” (which I imagine counts for most non-religious folks) and those who have religious and cultural traditions that never aligned with Christian ones.
Almost every non-religious person I know, including those who identify as atheist, have spent their whole lives in a world designed around their religious/cultural heritage, and most of their expectations for what is “normal” comes from that heritage.
I think this is a good thing. Many different kinds of Christian can be reasoned with, and persuaded to move towards non-religion, without making them disown their entire world-view. This is also true of some other religions, but not others.
Do you also think it is a good thing for blacks, women, and gays to live in such a world because the straight white men can be reasoned with?
That other cultures might be even worse does not excuse or mitigate the reality.
I tend to find that many people in the Church of England are quite welcoming to blacks. women and gays, mostly because they fall into those categories themselves. Still some work to do to help them embrace trans people, though.