Editor’s note — I’ve posted a few articles about this “Easter worshippers” nonsense from Obama and Clinton — here’s another — this one by John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera:
The death toll from the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka continued to climb all week. As of Thursday, the official count was 359 dead.
Reading and listening to reports about the attacks, it’s apparent that the number of victims in Sri Lanka isn’t the only uncertainty. Many people, especially politicians and media outlets, seem to be having trouble deciding how to identify the victims. I don’t mean individual names. I mean identifying what the large majority of victims had in common besides being Sri Lankan: They were Christians.
The default identifier by left-leaning politicians on Twitter was “Easter worshippers.” Seeing a phrase that hardly anyone every uses repeated by so many was, well, just weird. In fact, when I first saw the trending “Easter worshippers” controversy blow up on Twitter, I wondered aloud if this was a redo of the made-up controversy over Starbuck’s red cups at Christmas from a few years ago. Like then, I wondered if a few isolated examples were being blown out of proportion.
I don’t know who originally decided to use the expression “Easter worshipper,” but it definitely caught on. So much so that it almost looks like there must have been a memo somewhere advising people to use the expression instead of calling the victims “Christians.”
President Obama tweeted “The attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity.” Leaving aside the fact that Christians, not “humanity” writ large, were the ones attacked, it’s still an odd choice of words.
Even odder was Secretary Hillary Clinton’s response: “On this holy weekend for many faiths, we must stand united against hatred and violence. I’m praying for everyone affected by today’s horrific attacks on Easter worshippers and travelers in Sri Lanka.”
Read more: Breakpoint
