The persecution complex: The Religious Right’s deceptive rallying cry

[SecularMotion]

The tales of horror keep pouring in: Two middle school girls are forced into a lesbian kiss as part of an anti-bullying program; an Air Force sergeant is fired because he opposes same-sex marriage; a high school track team is disqualified from a meet after an athlete thanks God for the team’s victory; a Veterans Affairs hospital bans Christmas cards with religious messages; a man fixing the lights in a Christmas tree falls victim to a wave of War-on-Christmas violence; an elementary school student is punished for praying over his school lunch; a little boy is forced to take a psychological evaluation after drawing a picture of Jesus.

None of these stories is true. But each has become a stock tale for Religious Right broadcasters, activists, and in some cases elected officials. These myths – which are becoming ever more pervasive in the right-wing media – serve to bolster a larger story, that of a majority religious group in American society becoming a persecuted minority, driven underground in its own country.

This narrative has become an important rallying cry for a movement that has found itself on the losing side of many of the so-called “culture wars.” By reframing political losses as religious oppression, the Right has attempted to build a justification for turning back advances in gay rights, reproductive rights and religious liberty for minority faiths.

The religious persecution narrative is nothing new – it has long been at the core of the Right’s reaction to secular government and religious pluralism – but it has taken off in recent years in reaction to advances in gay rights and reproductive freedom, and to an increasingly secular and pluralistic society.

http://www.sdgln.com/commentary/2014/07/16/persecution-complex-religious-right-deceptive-rallying-cry#sthash.pY60HCWy.dpbs

[trotsky]

1. "None of these stories is true."

Well the folks pushing them base their beliefs on a whole book full of untrue stories, so we can't really be surprised.

Facts are irrelevant. There are "other ways of knowing," so I've been told.

[edhopper]

2. The Supreme Court ruled

that we cannot oppose religious beliefs because they are false. In the hobby Lobby case, the objection to 4 contraception drugs because they cause abortions was shown to be medically untrue. Alito said they cannot rule based on whether the belief was true or not. Belief trumps reality and now it is the law of the land.
So it doesn't matter if these stories are true or not, as long as people believe them, they can be acted on.

[Viva_Daddy]

3. "The religious persecution narrative is nothing new"

Indeed, nothing new. The martyr stories told by the early Church were also mostly "not true". PROPAGANDA.