The good news yesterday was that the anti-abortion terrorist, Scott Roeder, was convicted of first degree murder for the shooting of Dr. George Tiller – and that the prosecution is asking that he be sentenced to life with no possibility of parole for fifty years.  However, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch report on  the trial contained this chilling comment from a Roeder supporter:

The whole nation has seen a trial where the justification of force to stop abortion has been expressed,” said Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines, Iowa. “And for a brief window, the very idea that force might be justified to stop abortion was taken seriously. And that has been enough to encourage pro-lifers and scare pro-deathers . [emphasis added]

Is this guy actually saying that the trial was good because it allowed Roeder to pose as a role model for others who might be attracted to the idea of murder?

My question is what is it going to take to get some of those folks obsessing about Muslim terrorists to take the seriously the thereat that Roeder’s fellow-travellers pose to our lives and to our democracy? At the very least those who advocate profiling Muslim males should also start calling for the profiling of Christians, don’t you think? Sure, most Christians are appalled by lunatics like Roeder and his supporters, but so are most Muslims appalled by Osama bin Laden. The key fact is that Scott Roeder and his methods have supporters and they make no bones abut their potential to engage in violence.

Missouri State Rep. Cynthia Davis’ persona has elements of the mid-20th century comedian Gracie Allen, who developed a sweetly stupid comic schtick derived from an earlier vaudeville stereotype, the “Dumb Dora.” Unfortunately, as Davis’ newsletters often demonstrate, in a political context Dumb Dora’s skewed logic is not always funny — particularly when dealing with topics such as the massacre at Fort Hood.

At this early point all that we can actually verify about the perpetrator, Nidal Hasan, is that he was a disturbed man whose discontent seems to have been expressed through religious preoccupations. To Davis, however, that Hasan is a Muslim is the only important fact. She writes in her latest Newsletter:

Christianity is the foundation of tolerance.  … Jesus teaches us to love our enemies.  On the other hand radical Muslims, such as Hasan’s imam (Islamic cleric) teach it is honorable to kill non-Muslims…. While some Muslims may be unaware of what their faith teaches and others do not adhere to these parts of the Koran, we as a country should not ignore the obvious

ooooh! We loving and tolerant Christians just can’t trust those scary Muslims, no matter how reasonable they seem!

But wait a minute – earlier this year another disturbed man, his anger focused through the lens of fundamentalist Christian dogma, erupted in a violent act. Christian anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder shot Dr George Tiller who had just been acquitted of violating Kansas’ late-term abortion law. There can be little doubt that Roeder’s motivation was influenced by his religious beliefs.  

And what did Cynthia Davis, Christian anti-abortion champion, have to say about fundamentalist Christian terrorism in the person of Scott Roeder?:

With no knowledge of the person who shot George Tiller, I can only speculate he may have been mentally unbalanced.  With the exception of self defense, it is hard to imagine how anyone could shoot another human being in his right mind,…

.

Gracie Allen may have presented a Dumb Dora face to the public, but her stage character never allowed stupidity to lead her past the bounds of decency and fairness. One wishes that one could say the same for Cynthia Davis.