Famed atheist Richard Dawkins has said an article claiming "hypocritical leftists" are willing to give "Muslim extremists a pass" - but not Christians - is "sadly very true" and "utterly disgraceful."
The evolutionary biologist recently took to Twitter to share a New York Post article titled "Hypocritical leftists willing to give Muslim extremists a pass."
"OK, it's the NY Post," he tweeted. "But it happens to be true. Sadly, very true. And utterly disgraceful."
In her Op-Ed, journalist Maureen Callahan argues that the Western world - and liberals in particular - refuse to condemn or criticize the "horrors and misogyny" carried out in the name of Islam, yet eagerly fight "against the oppressions of Christian fundamentalism."
Callahan refers to a recent case in Michigan, where medical professionals belonging to a Shiite Muslim sect carried out female genital mutilation on a number of young girls as part of a religious "extra cleansing of skin". She points out that The New York Times, in a June 10 article, was quick to frame the illegal practice as a "potentially legitimate custom" by running the headline "Michigan Case Adds US Dimension to Debate on Genital Mutilation".
"Debate? Really?" she writes. "An estimated 100 girls have been brutalized in this specific community since 2005 - yet because this barbarism is contextualized as Islamic, far too many liberals seek to justify what is plainly child abuse, a gross violation of human rights."
Callahan continues: "There are plenty of Catholics and fundamentalist Christians who believe abortion is morally wrong, yet Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land. Why should Islam get special dispensation? Isn't it a supercilious attitude to take - that a muscular religion of 1.6 billion people requires deference to the point of infantilization?"
Dawkins, who previously dubbed Islam "the most evil religion in the world," in 2015 slammed leftist apologists of Islamic extremism and accused many in the media of turning a "treacherous" blind eye to the shocking human rights abuses carried out by Muslims around the world.
"Regressive left turns treacherous, blind eye on misogyny & homophobia because they absurdly think Islam must be 'respected' as a 'race,'" he wrote.
Last year, he once again slammed the media for claiming that the atrocities carried out by Islamic extremists have "nothing to do with religion" following the attack that killed 70 Pakistani Christians, mostly women and children, on Easter Sunday in Lahore.
At the time, he took to Twitter to offer a brief commentary on the tragedy: "Pak bomb kills 72," he wrote, and quoted the perpetrators of the attack as stating, "We have carried out this attack to target Christians who were celebrating Easter."
"Ah, nothing to do with religion, then," Dawkins quipped.
He also admitted that, "Christianity may actually be our best defense against aberrant forms of religion that threaten the world."
"There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers," he famously stated. "I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death."
