Frankly, I'm not surprised.

By now you've all heard about the nutjob who shot and killed two people at a Unitarian Universalist church in Tennessee. It's a absolute tragedy. Of course, the religious right deny that he was one of theirs; instead I've been reading quotes similar to this:

The gunman was not affiliated with the church. I suspect he has no idea about what a Unitarian church is....but just wanted to kill "Christians." The larger lesson here is that the world is becoming increasingly hostile to the church. Our church gets death threats all the time.....

Again, espousing the persecution-complex that is so common in Christians. I don't blame them for wanting to distance themselves from a psychotic killer, but it really disgusts me that they so readily turn such a tragedy into an excuse to cry about "intolerance" towards Christians.

I wonder what they have to say now that it's been confirmed that the killer wasn't targeting Christians. He knew very well what a Unitarian church is. From the Associated Press:

A four-page letter found in Adkisson's SUV indicated he picked the church for the attack because, the Knoxville police chief said, "he hated the liberal movement" of the congregation....Adkisson "stated that he had targeted the church because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country," investigator Steve Still wrote.

The only people being targeted here were "liberals". This sicko slaughtered people in front of little children simply because they differed from his own world view. And what worries me is that he isnt the only religous wingnut that thinks liberals are scum and should be killed. Fortunately, he's one of the very few that would act upon those thoughts but the point remains the same. There is no persecution of Christians in the Western world. THEY are the ones doing the persecuting, the fighting, the killing.