Kerby Anderson

Most Americans are familiar with the comments last week by Hillary Clinton that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are a “basket of deplorables” that are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.” Few are probably aware of the statements by Martin Castro directed at an even larger portion of the American population. Martin Castro is the chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an institution that did good work in the past by ending racial discrimination. Lately is has been a place where some fairly outrageous things have been said and done. Martin Castro continued that tradition last week. He said: “The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.” Gary Bauer noted that Castro made his comments just days before the nation was remembering the 9/11 attacks where Islamic supremacists killed 3,000 Americans. Instead, this Obama appointee was warning about so-called Christian supremacists. Meanwhile, Christian photographers, florists, bakers, and others have their jobs and livelihoods threatened. William McGurn, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says that Martin Castro has “performed an enormous public service for his county. But it’s not the one he thinks.” His comments on this civil rights report remind us of the bias the elites in America have against Christians and their belief that religious liberty and religious freedom are merely code words of despicable discrimination. Everyday we seem to find another example of liberal politicians or bureaucrats finding new ways to label large portions of the American population as racist, sexist, homophobic bigots. Perhaps it is the ones doing the labeling who are the true bigots.