Religion baiting by politicians, political pundits, and academic redeemers has replaced the old race baiting, which is now considered too primitive for the intellectual/political class.  For those who may not recall, according to Wikipedia,  Race baiting is the act of using racially derisive language, actions or other forms of communication, to anger, intimidate or incite a person or groups of people, or to make those persons behave in ways that are inimical to their personal or group interests.  This can also be accomplished by implying that there is an underlying race based motive in the actions of others towards the group baited, where none in fact exists.  All liberal groups and most of American society no longer accept race baiting as legitimate political or intellectual discourse in the public sphere.  However, this is not the case with religion.  This was clearly highlighted in the recent discourse on the comments by Ann Coulter during her interview (or baiting by) with Donny Deutsch of MSNBC.

Religion, as was with race, has to be defined with specificity.  It cannot be whatever anyone wants it to mean  As with race baiting, religious baiting has to use one word to mean something else.  In race baiting you would ask a person about crime in their city; knowing full well that crime was a predominantly black phenomena (in that city) and then turning everything the speaker said into an anti-black tirade.  The speaker thinks you are really talking about crime; when you are actually talking about race.  The same is now true about religion.  When baiting religion one must solely be oriented toward people of faith when they speak about religion.  When using the term religion and a speaker of faith answers in accordance with their theology honestly, they are berated for going on a tirade against all religions, i.e. committing the sin of intolerance.  For people of faith when asked a question about religion, they generally answer in accordance with their faith; not in accordance with the requirements of political tolerance, which are entirely different.

The bait (almost a bait and switch) is to use the generic religious reference to goad one to speak of their specific faith as unique.  It is done by switching the unique for the universal and then criticizing the speaker for answering uniquely rather than universally.  That is what makes this succeed and catches the speaker unprepared.  The new attack is on faith itself not on religious background per se.  Since all and any faith will show anyone to be intolerant in some way, the diversity and tolerance activists are prepared to go on the attack right away. 

This is why the continued ongoing negative attitudes toward Evangelical Christians and members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints or Mormons.  This is especially true on university campuses and by enlightened news reporters.  To identify yourself with Evangelicals or Mormons is by definition to claim that you are a person of faith.  Further this faith is of a traditional nature, i.e. a personal God, with revealed word, and all-inclusive, therefore exclusive of others.  Identity with most other religions becomes extremely unclear; is one speaking of cultural heritage, historical background, childhood accident, or possibly faith? 

A good example is Donny Deutsch, (I swear he sounds like someone from the Partridge Family), who is perceived as a cultural Jew.  A statement of no meaning except that it is definitely NOT an identification of faith.  Ann Coulter on the other hand was giving an answer strictly of her faith as a Roman Catholic.  Not a cultural one, not an accident of birth one, or one aimed at diversity (or political correctness).

As a cultural Jew, faith is irrelevant to Deutschs everyday life as it is to most secularists.  You can be an atheist and a Jew, but not a Jew of faith.  A Jew of faith would recognize the superiority of monotheism over polytheism in their beliefs and actions.  What is the place of the seven Noadic Laws required of all none Jews?  They are obligatory on every human.  All polytheists are idolaters, a grave sin; monotheism is truly superior and exclusively correct.

Now the cultural Jew knew this and baited her to give an answer of faith so that he could act horrified and insulted.  He was horrified and insulted not at her answer of faith; but, specifically because she answered from a faith perspective rather than a diversity perspective.  Deutsch and other Jewish critics, including critics from mainline indecisive Protestant denominations, and secular critics were offended at the fact that Coulter took a stand of faith, rather than a stand of encompassing tolerance.  The true political intolerance is not Ann Coulter, but, Deutsch and his fellow travelers who have perfected McCarthyism to a science when it comes to attacking people of faith, whatever their religion might be.

This lack of tolerance offends me and is a threat to me personally because this is how my Universitys fellow academics (so called colleagues) characterize all evangelical Christians, Mormons, and indirectly Jews of faith.  They (Evangelical Christians) are manipulating Christianity, and millions of sincere believers, to build a frightening political mass movement with many similarities with other mass movements, from fascism to communism to the ethnic nationalist parties in the former Yugoslavia (Hedges 2006).  To my academic colleagues there is not any difference between Evangelical Christians and the Nazi or Communist Party.  This is what the Hoosier (Indiana) taxpayers are paying for.  Indiana students are taught how to perform religious baiting while in the social sciences.  Since people of faith are not all inclusive in their belief than we can consider them as we would Nazis and other fascists.

Deutsch on MSNBC showed very well what the academics have been teaching young students in my States campuses at their parents expense: how to bait faith.  Who is the joke on?

How or what did Jews expect a Christian of faith to answer?  Not in any different way than a Jew of faith would answer, which Deutsch is not. 

The sad part is that Ann Coulter fell for it.  However, there will always be someone of faith who will fall for the new Twenty-First Century religious baiting.  What is not recognized is that it is just as much an attack of the faith of Jews as it is on Ann Coulters Catholic faith.  It all began when the haters of faith took over the university and trained the new crop of media experts of hate.