You may say that there is no discrimination against Christians in America or casually dismiss it because Christians need no protection here because this is allegedly a Christian nation.
But there is plenty of such discrimination, as I documented in my book “Persecution” a few years back.
During the publicity tour for the book, I had a mini-debate with Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz on CNN, as I recall. Dershowitz, who was very respectful and who is unquestionably quite intelligent, advanced a curious argument that night.
If memory serves, he suggested that it is absurd for me to argue that Christians face any real discrimination, because the overwhelming majority of Americans are Christian. I found this bizarre, as the majority of Americans are also women, and the last time I looked, no one ever challenges the women’s rights movement on the basis that majorities are inherently insulated from discrimination.
Our laws don’t say that everyone except for members of majority groups is entitled to equal protection of the laws. They don’t forbid discrimination against only members of minority groups.
Not to mention that these days, despite nominal affiliations, you have to wonder whether the majority of Americans truly are Christian, but that is another matter.
There is no question that our liberal secular culture frequently targets Christians and Christian practices for discriminatory treatment and rails against the expression of Christianity by public officials or the presence of Christian symbols in the public square. My book is replete with nearly 1,000 examples, from the banning of Christmas trees in public buildings to the censorship of high-school valedictory speeches with references to Jesus Christ, from the denial of access to public facilities to certain Christian groups to the forbidding of the voluntary exchange of Christmas cards in some public school classrooms. Some even make the outlandishly specious argument that the Constitution forbids public officials from permitting their Christian beliefs to inform their policy positions.