Secular Bigots of the Left

When I run across the same argument twice in half an hour from different sources I wonder if a meme is emerging.

Dirty Harry, over at Libertas, reviews "Lake of Fire", Tony Kaye's documentary on the abortion disputes, and observes:

What’s fascinating is hearing liberals like Noam Chomsky express their outrage towards the evangelical right. The interviews were all pre-9/11 and it’s striking how the left was horrified by violence in the name of religion once upon a time. Where are they now, you ask…? For starters, proving their bigotry through selective outrage.

Read the whole thing here.

Then I run across this piece on "The Evolution of Religious Bigotry" by Jonah Goldberg in which he writes.

I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there's the smugness. The undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers.

The hypocrisy is even more glaring. Darwin fish are often stuck next to bumper stickers promoting tolerance or admonishing random motorists that "hate is not a family value." But the whole point of the Darwin fish is intolerance; similar mockery of a cherished symbol would rightly be condemned as bigoted if aimed at blacks or women or, yes, Muslims.

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But the most annoying aspect of the Darwin fish is the false bravado it represents. It's a courageous pose without consequence. Like so much other Christian-baiting in American popular culture, sporting your Darwin fish is a way to speak truth to power on the cheap.

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It's not that secular progressives support Muslim religious fanatics, but they reserve their passion and scorn for religious Christians who are neither fanatical nor inclined to use violence.

The Darwin fish ostensibly symbolizes the superiority of progressive-minded science over backward-looking faith. I think this is a false juxtaposition, but I would have a lot more respect for the folks who believe it if they aimed their brave contempt for religion at those who might behead them for it.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, or could it be that the hypocrisy of the Left on religious matters has become so blatant that it is now an inviting target for conservatives.