A jihadist group murdered nearly 300 Christians in Sri Lanka in a coordinated terrorist attack across multiple churches and hotels on Easter Sunday. The attack was unequivocally abhorrent, and ought to have been easy enough to condemn outright. But apparently some odd talking points circulated among Democratic messengers, and something strange occurred.
On this holy weekend for many faiths, we must stand united against hatred and violence. I’m praying for everyone affected by today’s horrific attacks on Easter worshippers and travelers in Sri Lanka.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 21, 2019
The attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity. On a day devoted to love, redemption, and renewal, we pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 21, 2019
On a day of redemption and hope, the evil of these attacks on Easter worshippers and tourists in Sri Lanka is deeply saddening. My prayers today are with the dead and injured, and their families. May we find grace.
— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) April 21, 2019
If just one prominent Democrat had used the term “Easter worshippers” — a phrase I don’t recall ever having heard in my life — rather than “Christians,” you could make the generous case that it was meant not to offend Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christians, who observe the Julian calendar and don’t celebrate Easter until this week.
All three tweeting the same strained wording seems noteworthy, though. I wouldn’t waste any breath discussing something as inane as a stupid word choice, except for the political lesson to be gained from it: we cannot All Lives Matter specific tragedies.
President Trump did this when he equivocated on whether literal neo-Nazis were bad in Charlottesville, by deeming the blows brought during the white supremacist demonstration as between “very fine people on both sides.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., did this when she referred to 9/11, the worst domestic terrorist attack in American history, and a specific jihadist attack on America and her values at that, as “some people did something.”
And now Democrats have equivocated on anti-Christian terrorism.
The Christchurch massacre wasn’t about some guy doing something or an attack on people who happened to be at a mosque. It was a white supremacist attack specifically meant to slaughter Muslims in the sanctuary of prayer. This is what Black Lives Matters activists precisely got right, and it’s what their conservative opponents who refuted them with All Lives Matter willfully got wrong.
Language in politics always matters, but never more so than when drawing clear moral lines. Erasing the intentions of violent terrorists only empowers them by erasing their evil. We loathe terrorists more than we do mentally ill shooters, and with good reason. We fundamentally understand that not all murder is created equal, and that with the goal of terrorizing a specific demographic, especially for faith or immutable characteristics, ranks as one of the most evil.
Terrorists want to threaten their targets into submission, invisibility, and then elimination. I doubt that three Christian politicians erased the identities of the Sri Lankan victims with any ill will. But denying them their cross, the faith that made them martyrs, ultimately pushes us one step closer towards submission to the win of terror.
