The Ugly Reality of Name-Calling

The pathetic hypocrisy of so-called "Christians" who killed a doctor on Sunday as he served as an usher in his church is beyond comprehension.

To anti-abortionists George Tiller, who was shot dead on Sunday, was a mass murderer known as "Tiller the Killer". To his patients and many pro-choice supporters, he was a hero committed to women in need of help.

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Anti-abortion activists claimed Dr Tiller was performing late-term abortions for relatively minor foetal abnormalities.

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"Quit is not something I like to do," he said. He said he firmly believed his patients needed him and that he had the "strong support of his family".

Dr Tiller outlined a conversation he had had with his daughters - two of whom are physicians - in which he said the importance of his work was crystallised.

"My daughters came into my study," he said. "I was reading. And they said, 'Daddy, if not now, when? If not you, who? Who is going to stand up for women with unexpected and badly damaged babies?' I had the support of my family, and we were able to proceed ahead."

Kansas restricts abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy, except where the mother's health would be seriously harmed if the pregnancy continued.

These so-called "Christians" are ignorant fools. They don't even read their own Gospels. They took "justice" in their own hands, but one of the most famous stories of Jesus was when he stepped in as a crowd was about to stone an adulterous woman. Jesus said "He who is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." Well, the Christian Right have grabbed stones and flung them everywhere. They didn't learn this lesson that Jesus taught. They've gone an killed this doctor.

Even in civil law we stand back and use a judicious procedure to ensure fairness. We don't just "string 'em up" when somebody is accused. But this is just what the fanatical Christians have done. In particular the "Operation Rescue" group has sowed seeds of hate that has led to this death. These hypocrites are trying to distance themselves from the act:

In a statement, Troy Newman of Operation Rescue said his group denounced "vigilantism" but that it had worked for years through peaceful and legal means and to see Dr Tiller "brought to justice".

But their fingerprints are all over this crime. They effectively whispered words of hate into the ears of an unstable man who finally picked up a gun and shot Tiller. Now this group wants to stand back and say "oh my gosh, we never intended this". Nonsense. Their hate led to this hate crime. They are accomplices in murder.

And it isn't just the evangelical radicals behind this crime. I find it disgusting that Catholics, the priests diddling little boys and wrecking lives while protecting the guilty, have pushed and pushed the hate campaign against doctors. There is a phrase by Jesus about the hypocrisy of wanting to remove the tiny fleck in another's eye when you have a great gob of ugliness in your own eye. Jesus had a word for this: hypocrisy.

The anti-abortionist Christians are a plague of hypocrites. Not just the ones who shoot doctors or bomb abortion clinics. The ones who quietly stand at the back and egg on the unstable and the violent to do their dirty deed for them. They can't claim innocence when they have used inflamtory words like "killer Tiller".

The whole thing sickens me. I class it with the same kind of fundamentalist hypocrisy that sees Muslim fanatics seize planes full of innocents and fly them into buildings full of innocents trying to kill as many as they can. This from religion that talks about a "merciful God". Well, the sicko Christians act the same way. The snake oil they sell is of a "loving God" but they are out with guns to shoot down doctors and bombs to blow up clinics.

For me, their deeds speak louder than words: THEY ARE HYPOCRITES. Their message is a lie because their actions show what they mean. They bring death while speaking of life. They spread hate while they talk of love. They poison social dialog with hate while they talk of "forgiveness". Until Christians rise up and denounce these fanatics and drive them out of the churches, then all "Christians" are hypocrites and facilitators of these crimes. Just as Muslims who have not stood up and denounced the fanaticism of the terrorists are facilitators of those crimes.

Name calling has consequences. If your group harbours fanatics and you don't "out them" -- not just disassociate from them but make clear that they are killers and terrorist -- then your silence means you are a collaborator. It means that your so-called belief system is a lie. You can't preach one thing and do another. Words are cheap. Actions are what define you.