While the actual bad guys get a free pass from the mainstream media and the academic elites, conservative Christians are increasingly portrayed as terrorists, thugs and dastardly hypocrites bent on forcing their views on others. We've seen this distortion showing up in novels and Hollywood movies for years now but new expressions are emerging in yet other areas. I cite here just a couple from today's perusing the web...
* A local paper reports that a drill at Burlington Township High School in New Jersey involved police portraying mock gunmen, described as "members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the 'New Crusaders' who don't believe in the separation of church and state." The fake gunmen were said to have been "seeking justice because the daughter of one [member] had been expelled for praying before class."
* Jane Martin's play, Keely and Du, the winner of the 1994 American Theater Critics Association New Play Award is still being produced by colleges as in the recent performance at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. The play is a story of a woman impregnated by a rapist and then abducted by an extremist Christian group that is against abortion. The play opens with the woman asleep and handcuffed to a bed where her kidnappers intend her to stay until she gives birth. Your ordinary pro-life educational effort, right?
