Bill Donohue comments on apologists for Muslim violence:
In the wake of an enfeebled attempt by Ben Affleck, Rosie O’Donnell, and Whoopi Goldberg—all Catholic bashers—rising to the defense of Muslims accused of barbarism, we now have the spectacle of Nicholas Kristof, a relentless Catholic critic, saying in the New York Times that Muslims had nothing to do with any bloodbaths in the 20th century.
During and after World War I, Muslims murdered 1.5 million Christian Armenians out of a total population of 2 million. In 1971, 2.5 million Hindus were murdered by Muslims in E. Pakistan. Don’t these 4 million innocent men, women, and children count, Mr. Kristof?
These two genocides, along with the genocides committed by atheist regimes in Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia, are far and away the most violent demonstrations of purist ideologies in the 20th century. Not to acknowledge this is criminal.
These apologists have no problem insulting, mocking, deriding, and bashing Catholic priests because a tiny minority were molesters: one out of 100,000 priests in the last half century (a total of 149) accounted for over a quarter of all alleged clergy abuse. Yet when large swaths of Muslims—all over the world—justify murdering Christians, Jews, converts, and women adulterers, these same Catholic haters rush to defend the blind followers of Muhammad. And while we properly condemn Holocaust deniers, we still tolerate 9/11 deniers, a disproportionate segment of whom are Muslims.
Affleck, O’Donnell, and Goldberg are lightweights who know nothing of what they speak, but Kristof knows better. Which is why his column, “The Diversity of Islam,” is all the more despicable. Sadly, when it comes to endorsing sharia law, which is a religious expression of totalitarianism, there is more that unites Muslims than separates them.
Contact Kristof: kristof@nytimes.com
