Anti-abortion violence - Christian fundamentalist terrorism

June 3, 10:19 AMAtheism ExaminerTrina Hoaks

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There is no doubt in the minds of sane Americans that the murder, or assassination if you will, of Dr. George Tiller was a horrific act of violence. Of course, there are those nut-jobs, like Randall Terry - founder of Operation Rescue, who are contending, according to the The Washington Post, that the doctor "'reaped what he sowed.'" Many of those people are Christian fundamentalists. And because the acts of violence against those involved with abortion are being chained together, these acts are being referred to as acts of organized terrorism. Put the two together and you get Christian fundamentalist terrorism (not my term).

Interestingly, or maybe not so interestingly, the very people who bellow the loudest about the immorality of abortionists see nothing immoral about killing someone... in the name of God. Some of them even celebrate the killings and exalt the killers calling them heroes. There are numerous Web sites that are doing just that. I will not give them any recognition in this article as the miscreants who run these sites are unworthy of any "glorifying" attention. (If you wish to find them, you are welcome to search them out.)

Now, many Christians will cry out that they do not condone such acts. While this is true, there is no doubt that there are those who do. And no doubt, as per usual, some Christian will say that those who commit these acts aren't true Christians. The bottom line is that those Christians, much like the Fred Phelps crew, act atrociously in the name of God. Whether others think they are true Christians or not is irrelevant to the fact that they say they are and they commit the atrocities they do in the name of God.

The religious right is being called out for inciting this type of violence in America. A strong case is being made. While I believe that each individual is responsible for his own actions, there is much to be said for mob mentality. And those who speak in such rhetoric as to egg people on know exactly what they are doing. There is no mistake that Randall Terry, in addition to celebrating the death of Dr. George Tiller, is calling for more of the same. He said, "the antiabortion movement is facing irrelevance and must use 'confrontational' tactics and 'highly charged rhetoric.'" (Perhaps it is his own irrelevance with which he is concerned.)

This most likely comes as no surprise to people familiar with Terry. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins wrote about Terry.

Returning to the American Taliban, listen to Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, an organization for intimidating abortion providers. 'When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we'll execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed.' Terry was here referring to doctors who provided abortion, and his Christian inspiration is clearly shown by other statements:

   I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good... Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism.
     Our goal must be simple. We must have a Christian nation built on God's law, on the Ten Commandments. No apologies.

This ambition to achieve what can only be called a Christian fascist state is entirely typical of the American Taliban. It is an almost exact mirror of the Islamic fascist state so ardently sought by many people in other parts of the world.

In his apology published by The Huffington Post, the author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, Frank Schaeffer, a self-described member of the "religious right" and "leader of the so-called pro-life movement and a part of a Republican Party hate machine masquerading as the moral conscience of America" said:

Hyperbole from the pulpit from religious leaders, be it from my father or from President Obama's former pastor the Rev. Wright, is par for the course. But once in a while someone 'does something' about it and then everyone says that they were only speaking metaphorically or 'spiritually' when they called for violence or for the overthrow the state or when they said things like 'God damn America!' or that 'abortionists are murderers like Hitler!'

Angry speech has become the norm in American religion from both the right and the left. Words are spoken which -- when taken seriously -- lead directly to violence by the unhinged and/or the truly committed.

Schaeffer said that he, and his father before him, in their books, A Time for Anger and A Christian Manifesto, respectively:

...advocated force if all other methods for rolling back the abortion ruling of Roe v. Wade failed.... compared America and its legalized abortion to Hitler's Germany and said that whatever tactics would have been morally justified in removing Hitler would be justified in trying to stop abortion.

Like many writers of moral/political/religious theories my father and I would have been shocked that someone took us at our word, walked into a Lutheran Church and pulled the trigger on an abortionist. But even if the murderer never read Dad's or my words we helped create the climate that made this murder likely to happen.

Perhaps the US should take serious steps to infiltrate these anti-abortion extremist groups and start treating them like the terrorists they are. Certainly, when groups outside of the US have spewed rhetoric, schemed, and incited violence the way these groups have, they have been regarded as terrorists. These groups are no different save the fact that they are on American soil. These groups should be taken to task, because, if they aren't, this nonsense will continue. As Schaeffer said:

The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as 'murderers.' And today once again the 'pro-life' leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I'd like to say on this day after a man was murdered in cold blood for preforming (sic) abortions that I -- and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church, all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.

It makes me wonder... if these same groups were targeting some public official, say the president, or a celebrity rather than abortionists, would their actions be tolerated? I think we know the answer to that.

And all of this over a myth... a lie... in the name of a mythical god. In the words of Christopher Hitchens in god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything:

... it helps to make the case for 'antitheism.' By this I mean the view that we ought to be glad that none of the religious myths has any truth to it, or in it. The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.