No one should burn churches in America. Not African American churches. Not predominantly white churches. Not Jewish synagogues.
Not even Sarah Palin’s former church. Whatever the motivation, it is wrong to burn a church. Arson is an extremely serious crime, and if terrorism or revenge or simply hate were the reasons why someone intentionally set fire to Palin’s former church, that person or person should be prosecuted for a hate crime. And no leniency should be shown to them.
That said, I don’t remember this kind of outrage ( read the comments here) from the right blogosphere when poisonous fumes were pumped into a Mosque in Ohio during worship there, an attack which sickened many children and adults, and which was clearly connected to the hate video that two extremist right wing funded groups distributed during the election campaign in various states. Nor do I recall all that much concern by conservatives for the bombings domestic right wing Christian terrorist Eric Rudolph carried out against an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub. Or the shootings at the “liberal” Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, Tennessee earlier this year, where the shooter clearly had been inspired to act by inflammatory writings and hate speech by right wing talk radio hosts preaching hatred against liberals.
So the concern here appears a tad selective in my opinion. Violence should never be an option as a means of resolving political disputes. It would help if those who have cheered on violence against people on the left side of the political spectrum acknowledged the log in their own eye, before condemning “liberals” and “lefties” for the attack on the church in Wasilla, especially before any facts about the arsonists who perpetrated this heinous crime are known.
