Neil Stahl: Bigotry never dies

Regarding the April 19 column “The most frightening lesson from the Holocaust”: FBI director James B. Comey wrote a valuable article on what “good” people can be made to do.

He mentioned that those who carried out the Holocaust “went to church and gave to charity” among other normal things. I’ll add that most of them were Catholics and Lutherans whose churches had taught for centuries that Jews were “Christ killers.”

Presumably Catholics and Lutherans are no longer hearing that from their clerics, but way too many people are hearing that certain kinds of people, including homosexuals and atheists and abortionists, can bring down the wrath of God on their neighbors. Let’s be clear on the effects of such hate speech and let’s hold the guilty responsible.

The “religious freedom” of bigots and fanatics does not trump our safety.

This story was originally published April 25, 2015 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Neil Stahl: Bigotry never dies."