Julia Ioffe is uncomfortable with Rand Paul focusing, almost exclusively, on the effect Assad’s fall could have on Syria’s Christians. Dreher spots a double standard:
What she ought to understand is that Paul is a Republican politician trying to explain to a big part of the GOP base — conservative Christians — why they should pay particular attention to the Syria situation, and oppose the US government’s plans to enter the war on behalf of the Islamist rebels. I very much doubt Ioffe would complain about Jewish politicians speaking to American Jews to rally them behind an American foreign policy proposal that protected the interests of their co-religionists in Israel, or US Muslim politicians like Keith Ellison doing the same when talking to American Muslims about his co-religionists in the Mideast, and American foreign policy. And she should not! Why must Christian politicians only speak about US foreign policy in universalist terms? Why do people like Ioffe consider it immoral for a Christian politician to speak up for Christians?
Mark Movsesian is like-minded:
In a pluralistic society, people have multiple commitments–religious, ethnic, ideological, familial—that cut across national borders. Everyone knows these commitments influence people’s decisions about foreign policy. African-Americans cared deeply about US policy with respect to South African apartheid in the 1980s and care deeply about US policy in Africa today; Americans Jews care deeply about US policy toward Israel; American Muslims care deeply about US policy toward Palestine; and so on. Should Christians alone check their commitments at the door? Should they alone be embarrassed to raise the dire situation of co-religionists in other countries? Where’s the sense in that?
Dreher seconds him.
The Dish 