Obama, Silent on Christians Being Targeted for Their Religion, Was Not Silent When Muslims Were Targeted
Barack Obama, February 13, 2015, after the slaying of three Muslims in North Carolina:
President Barack Obama said Friday that no one should be targeted for what they look like or how they worship as he and First Lady Michelle Obama offered condolences to the families of three Muslim American students killed in Chapel Hill, N.C. this week.
In a statement, Obama called the slayings “brutal and outrageous” and said “no one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship.”
We have now heard accounts from three eyewitnesses, reported through relatives, that the Oregon shooter targeted Christians for being Christians. The Washington Post cited the statements of Anastasia Boylan and J.J. Vicari:
In one classroom, he appeared to single out Christian students for killing, according to witness Anastasia Boylan.
“He said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second,’” Boylan’s father, Stacy, told CNN, relaying his daughter’s account while she underwent surgery to treat a gunshot to her spine.
“And then he shot and killed them.”
Another account came from Autumn Vicari, who described to NBC News what her brother J.J. witnessed in the room where the shootings occurred. According to NBC: “Vicari said at one point the shooter told people to stand up before asking whether they were Christian or not. Vicari’s brother told her that anyone who responded ‘yes’ was shot in the head. If they said ‘other’ or didn’t answer, they were shot elsewhere in the body, usually the leg.”
The Los Angeles Times today adds a third eyewitness account, that of Lacey Scroggins:
Lacey looked to her left and saw Harper-Mercer shoot someone. “’And his body dropped to the ground, and I realized this is not a drill any longer,’“ Scroggins recalled his daughter saying.
She lay on the floor with her arms in front of her and heard the shooter say: “You, in the orange shirt. Stand up. What religion are you? Are you a Christian?”
When the student answered, Lacy told her father, “I heard, Daddy, I heard a pop, and then the thud of a body that just hit the ground.” The gunman asked the same question of another student and shot them, too, she said.
So far, not a word from Obama about these students being targeted for being Christian.
I’m sure Big Media could get drag a reluctant statement from Obama about how targeting Christians is wrong — if they put the question to him directly (but of course Big Media mainstream publications would never think to do so). But he’s not going to say anything without being prodded. If the shooter had been targeting Muslims, the news cycle would be dominated for days by stories about religious bigotry and how it caused the shooting. And Barack Obama would be at the forefront of it.
But targeting Christians? Yawn.
Thanks to Kevin Gutzman on Facebook for pointing this out.