THE CATHOLIC RIOTS OF '89

Remember when this happened?

American Catholics lashed out in violent rampages in 1989, after photographer Andres Serrano's ''Piss Christ" -- a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine -- was included in an exhibition subsidized by the National Endowment for the Arts. Or that they rioted in 1992 when singer Sinead O'Connor, appearing on ''Saturday Night Live," ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II.

I don't either. Because they never happened. As Jeff Jacoby points out,

Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable today for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers -- ''They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols" -- was any reader surprised?

Yet to the secular left, America is in danger of becoming a theocracy (indeed Maureen Dowd of the NYTimes said we already reside in one in a typical fit of moonbat hystrionics). Nothing could be further than the truth. We are a nation of religious people and cultures...a mixed bag of those who worship God. A theocracy exists when everyone is forced to worship the SAME god in the SAME way. Ain't happening here folks. If they spent a week in a Muslim-dominated country observing a theocracy in action, and survived to tell the tale, they'd stop bloviating and appreciate what they have.