Coulter symbolizes what is wrong

Conservative darling Ann Coulter is the epitome of what is wrong with George Bush's America. Her words, like the president's actions, make a mockery of the phrase "caring, compassionate Christianity," which has become the mantra of the extreme right.

In her dreams, Coulter said, the U.S. looks like the 2004 Republican National Convention, where people were "happy," "Christian," "tolerant," and "defended America." She neglected to mention white, heterosexual, and wealthy, which explains their "irrational exuberance," and shows them to be anything but tolerant.

Why argue about allowing the president of Iran to speak at Columbia University when Coulter regularly spews homegrown bigotry on news and talk shows across the country, all the while arguing that those whom she offended should not be offended? The latest such incident involved her statement that Christians "want Jews to be perfected," a euphemism for converts to Christianity.

Despite Coulter's desire to make it so, ours is not a "Christian nation." While Christians have always comprised the majority of our population, we are a diverse country built on the backs of successive waves of immigrants who washed up on our shores in search of freedom and the opportunity for a better life.

Our constitutional provision for separation of church and state protects religious freedom and ensures liberty and justice for all Americans, not just those who think or look the same as the majority. Those, like Coulter, who would have it otherwise pose a greater threat to our way of life than foreign terrorists do.

Sheryl Jedlinski

Palatine