The Left’s True Reason for Opposing Religion

Written by Brian Wencel

The Left often whines about religion being shoved in their faces, claiming that religious beliefs are being forced upon them by Christian conservatives. If you try and talk to a liberal about abortion, gay marriage, or the indoctrination occurring in the public school system, you’ll be bombarded with demands to keep religion out of government, even if you never brought your religious beliefs into the conversation in the first place. They claim to take a firm stance against having religious talk forced on people who don’t want it. That’s why they don’t want to see schools engage in prayer, and it’s why they are often opposed to public preaching.

However, it seems like some may have had a change of heart in the Democrat-run city of Minneapolis. On April 17^th, the mayor of Minneapolis signed an ordinance allowing the numerous mosques in the city to broadcast calls to prayer multiple times a day, at any time they please. This may happen as early as 3:30 a.m. and as late as 11 p.m., depending on the time of the year.

Of course, I don’t think leftists had a sudden change of heart toward religious liberty. Imagine if churches wanted to broadcast the Lord’s prayer five times a day. Would they be fine with that? We certainly can’t know for sure, but history (the end of prayer in school, the cancellation of the Pledge of Allegiance, etc.), tells us the answer is almost certainly “no.”

Here’s another example: back in 2009, a Phoenix-area church rang bells every half an hour. Unsurprisingly, people complained about being woken up at 6:00 a.m. every morning, and the bells were ultimately silenced. If bells at 6:00 a.m. are enough of an issue that the government needs to intervene in a religious expression, then shouldn’t the Muslim call to prayer, which typically lasts around five minutes, also present an issue? I wouldn’t necessarily call this a double standard since it’s two completely different cities, but I can imagine that many leftists would support the silencing of these church bells while simultaneously celebrating the new Minneapolis ordinance.

According to CBS News, one Minneapolis resident said, “Sometimes you don’t hear the Adhan and you sleep; you cannot wake up and come to the Adhan. Now it’s clear…You hear and you’ll be happy to come and pray and join.” Maybe this is a happy experience for Muslims, but what about non-Muslims? Why does everyone have to be woken up for a prayer they might not even care about or, in some cases, one they are outright opposed to?

According to the Left’s logic, this would be much worse than prayer in public schools or public preaching. In those situations, you can get up and leave or simply walk in a different direction, but in the case of the call to prayer, you can’t escape it without moving out of the city entirely. But the Left doesn’t see the ordinance as a problem, as you might naively think. It’s because their desire isn’t actually to curtail religion as a whole. The goal is much more targeted.

The Left pretends to oppose religion in general, or at least the idea of forcing it onto others. They claim to believe that the religious liberty part of the First Amendment means freedom from unwanted religious ideas, but the primary goal is opposition to Christianity and tolerance to most other religions. Michael Knowles put this well in a recent segment of his show concerning the Minneapolis ordinance:

“The one through line to leftism is opposition to Christianity.”

Leftism has many ideas that are incompatible and nonsensical, but one thing has stayed consistent, and that is their resistance to Christianity. It makes absolutely no sense for leftists to support the LGBTQ pride movement while also claiming to be happy about a Muslim call to prayer being allowed in Minneapolis. I can’t think of a religion that is more intolerant to homosexuality than Islam. It’s a religion that opposes the average American liberal’s worldview in nearly every way possible, and yet the Left largely think of Muslims as an oppressed victim group that needs to be protected, supported, and celebrated. There could be a few reasons for this. One is that they are afraid of the social consequences of speaking against Islam, or it could be that they don’t see Islam as a threat on par with Christianity. No matter the reason, one thing is clear: leftism is specifically targeting Christianity, not religion as a whole, as they claim.

Whether you agree with the new law in Minneapolis or not, it shows the Left’s double standard when it comes to religion. I could see how someone might be in favor of allowing the Muslim call to prayer in Minneapolis since you could argue that it has to do with freedom of religious expression, but what I can’t understand is being in favor of this but at the same time opposed to public expressions of Christian faith. The Left’s intolerance of Christianity in particular is obvious, and we can’t go on letting them hide behind the mask of simply being against religion in general. They have a vendetta against biblical belief and it’s time we stopped pretending they don’t.