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OPINION
Hillary Clinton

Powers: Saint Hillary seeks to save Christians from Christianity

Self-satisfied authoritarian response to religious people exposes secular sacred cows.

Kirsten Powers
Hillary Clinton addresses the Annual Women in the World Summit on Thursday in New York.

This darn world just won't stop clinging to religion.

But Hillary Clinton is on the case. At last week's Women in the World Summit, Clinton explained to her high-end Manhattan audience that "deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed" regarding "reproductive health care." She was talking about both the United States and unnamed "far-away countries."

If Clinton is going to complain about cultural codes, perhaps she should dispense with the "reproductive health care" euphemism and just say "abortion" and "contraception." Then she should explain why she thinks she, or anyone else, has the right to dictate what religious people believe about either issue.

We know she wants to be president — but does she think she is God, too?

Like President Obama — who famously opined that Americans "cling" to religion out of bitterness — Clinton seems to view religious doctrine in opposition to her political agenda as nothing more than "biases" or "codes" to be dismantled by those who know better. It's worth noting that many of the countries that ban or severely limit access to abortion are Muslim, so this was not an exclusively anti-Christian broadside.

It would take an army of psychologists to determine why Clinton believes that her worldview should override that of centuries of religious doctrine. I actually share her view about contraception, and my understanding of the Bible does not preclude it. But Catholics disagree. I respect that. Religious beliefs that differ from mine are not automatically viewed as targets for transformation.

Clinton's comments echo those of The New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, who wrote this month that opposing same-sex marriage based on religious beliefs "elevates unthinking obeisance above intelligent observance,"and he argued for "freeing religions and religious people from prejudices that they needn't cling to." Bruni quoted a gay rights activist who said, "Church leaders must be made 'to take homosexuality off the sin list.' "

Here's another idea: Let's free secularists from their unthinking obeisance to a plot line that casts religious believers as intolerant dimwits in need of saving by not-so-benevolent ideological bullies. Let's stop treating the ignorant stereotyping and smearing of religious believers as a noble, self-sanctifying cause.

My views on homosexuality are more in line with Bruni's. But I also have relationships with incredible religious leaders and believers who love gay people but who also believe the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin. They shouldn't be maligned as unthinking zealots. Apparently unlike Clinton, I know brilliant men and women who oppose abortion based on deeply held religious beliefs that deserve respect, not targeting for re-education.

The intolerance, condescension and ignorance expressed about religious people is troubling enough in itself. But what sends chills up the spine is the barely veiled advocacy for authoritarianism when religious beliefs clash with secular sacred cows. After all, what entity will make religious leaders "take homosexuality off the sin list"? How exactly will Clinton change religious beliefs at odds with her worldview?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

Kirsten Powers writes weekly for USA TODAY and is author of the upcomingThe Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors. To read more columns like this, go to the Opinion front page.

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