Christian terrorism

Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, says that Dr. Tiller deserved to be killed. According to Terry, Tiller "deserved a trial of his peers, and a legal execution"; thus his disagreement with the murderer was only over the means, while he at the same time shared with that murderer the same overriding goal of ending Tiller's life. Terry claims that he supports peaceful actions, but supporting peace is contrary to issuing public calls for anyone's death.

The irony of calling yourself "pro-life" and yet calling for anyone to be killed is obvious, but the deeper question is how anyone who uses such hate-filled rhetoric can avoid a measure of responsibility for drumming up the atmosphere of hatred that served as the inspiration for the killer to pull the trigger. Terry is not alone in drumming up hatred against Dr. Tiller; the former state Attorney General, Phill Kline had pursued a vendetta against Tiller when he filed trumped up charges against Tiller, all of which Tiller was later acquitted of.

In essence, the acts of hatred and persecution leading up to the murder of an abortion doctor form a spectrum of acts of intolerance by certain elements on the Christian Right. There are those intolerant Christians who blame all of Islam for the terrorist acts of some Muslims, but in fact there are intolerant Christians as well who will resort to acts of violence in order to pursue their goals. All religions can have their share of extremists.

On the other hand, I would remind those atheists who might see this act of terrorism as an example of how "religion poisons everything" of what Dr. Tiller was doing when he got shot--he was serving as an usher in a Lutheran church.