Faithful Democrats
Ann Coulter’s latest adventure in Antichristianity: she “understands” why abortion clinic workers are murdered. Here’s the exact quotation:
“Those few abortionists were shot, or, depending on your point of view, had a procedure with a rifle performed on them. I’m not justifying it, but I do understand how it happened….The number of deaths attributed to Roe v. Wade about 40 million aborted babies and seven abortion clinic workers; 40 million to seven is also a pretty good measure of how the political debate is going.”
Theoretically, the fact that Coulter “understands” a sick act is fine. I understand, too. And she is of course careful to say she’s “not justifying it.” I don’t want to get into the same game that right-wingers do when they attack progressives for wanting to “understand,” say, the terrorists who attack the U.S. Understanding is a good thing, if used for a constructive end.
The problem is that the context of Coulter’s remarks is not constructive. She’s not trying to get to the bottom of murderous behavior in order to stop it; she’s subtly encouraging it. Coulter is trying to generate sympathy for killers. She even insinuates there’s something wrong with there being only seven dead abortion workers, given the vast number of abortions — thus implying that a greater number of such deaths would somehow level the playing field.
Her claim that she isn’t justifying murder is an afterthought — an obligatory “to be sure” line in an otherwise sickening glorification of the most extreme “activists” in the country. As Pastor Dan argues, sooner or later someone is going to be beaten or killed as a result of the reckless rhetoric of people like Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, and the rest of the “We Hate for Christ” crowd.
Speaking of which, Coulter gave these remarks to a Christian organization: the Center for Reclaiming America. I somehow doubt that the glib dismissal of murder is the way to bring our country to Christ.
One’s view on abortion, of course, isn’t relevant. One can think abortion itself is murder and still believe in respecting the law of the land — or, even better, in protesting the law peacefully. Our nation has plenty of models for creating social change in constructive ways. But we won’t hear Ann Coulter talking about that. No, we’ll just hear her continue to “joke” about “faggots” and “ragheads” and blowing up the New York Times building.
It’s time to put Ann’s garbage to an end and lift the level of dialogue in this country. Media Matters has a list of the newspapers that carry Ann Coulter’s syndicated column. Contact them and demand they stop running her immediately.
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