IT’S LIBERALS WHO ARE OFFENSIVE AND DESPICABLE, NOT CHRISTIANS

Here in America, the "War" on Christmas is mostly figurative.  In much of the world, it’s all too real.

*A bomb exploded in St. Teresa Catholic Church in Madalla, Nigeria, on Christmas Day killing 35 and wounding 52.  The Islamist group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for that, and for attacks on four other churches.

*In Iraq, midnight masses were cancelled "as a consequence of the never ending assassinations of Christians," said Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk.

*In his Christmas message this year, Pope John Paul said he was "thinking particularly of Indonesia, where our brothers and sisters in faith, even on this Christmas day, are undergoing a tragic time of trial and suffering."

*There were no Christmas decorations this year in Bab Tuma, the oldest Christian quarter of Damascus, because of the escalating violence in Syria.

*Coptic Christians in Egypt don’t celebrate Christmas until Jan. 6, but they’re fearful.  Dozens have been killed, hundreds injured, and several churches burned since the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak in February.

*Christians once comprised 80 percent of the population in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.  Persecution has brought that down to 10 percent.  Most of the remaining Christians want to leave, said Israeli human rights lawyer Justus Weiner.

"In 10 or 15 or at most 20 years, there won’t be any Christians in the Cradle of Christianity," he predicted.

In my Christmas column last week, No Happier Day, I noted that — with the curious exception of Islam — liberals are trying to drive religion from the public square.  Public display of Christian symbols is "offensive," they say.  Christians are "intolerant;" they seek to impose their values on others.

This mostly isn’t true about Christians — or about Jews or Buddhists.  But almost everywhere where Moslems wield power, religious minorities are persecuted. 

Moslems tend to support pluralism only in countries where they are a minority.  Most seek a worldwide "Caliphate" governed by Islamic law (Sharia), in which "infidels" would be relegated to second class status (dhimmitude).

There are, of course, moderate Moslems willing to live in peace with people of other faiths.  But liberals make little effort to distinguish (or protect) them from the Islamists.

On her web talk show, actress Victoria Jackson criticized the Moslem Brotherhood, a powerful Islamist group whose founder admired Adolf Hitler.  Her comments were "ignorant hatred with no foundation in reality," charged one of her guests, Hollywood gossip blogger Perez Hilton.

Christians are "horrific" and "despicable" because they disapprove of homosexuality, said Mr. Hilton, who is homosexual.  Apparently he is unaware that if the Moslem Brotherhood were in charge here, he’d be executed.

It is beyond curious for militantly secular liberals to exempt Islam from their assault on religious expression in the public square.  It is bizarre.  But the double standard is obvious.

In San Diego, a student was suspended for bringing his Bible to school.  In Ohio, a middle school teacher was ordered to hide his personal Bible from students.  Teachers in Sumner County, Tennessee, were forbidden to bow their heads in prayer if students were watching.  Officials at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center forbade relatives from bringing Bibles to wounded soldiers.

New York City public schools forbid display of Christian symbols during Christmas, but permit display of the Menorah and the Islamic star and crescent during Jewish and Islamic religious holidays.  Public schools in Cambridge, Massachusetts close for the Moslem holiday of Eid al-Adha.  Middle school students in Wellesley, Mass took a field trip to a mosque.  

The double standard reached ludicrous proportions when law professor John Banzhaf demanded that crosses be removed from classrooms at Catholic University because they may be "offensive" to the handful of Moslem students there.

After 9/11, and again after the Fort Hood massacre two years ago, liberals fretted there would be a "backlash" against Moslems.  No backlash has ever materialized. Of the 1,552 victims of religiously motivated hate crimes last year, only 12.7 percent were Moslems, according to the FBI.  Two thirds were Jewish.

Here as well as overseas, Moslems are far more likely to be victimizers than victims.  And liberals will continue to apologize for and excuse them.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.