What do you call a photograph of a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of urine?

If you’re part of the liberal establishment, you might call it “modern art” worthy of a generous taxpayer-funded grant.

Or how about the burning of an American flag in a protest? Our courts say that act is protected as freedom of speech.

Now, what do you call a Koran submerged in a toilet? If you were part of the liberal elite, you’d call it a “hate-crime” and a felony punishable by up to two years in prison.

Perhaps you remember my first example. “Piss Christ” was the blasphemous photograph that won an art competition and $15,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts. But you may not yet have heard about the student at Pace University in New York who was arrested last week on charges of criminal mischief and aggravated harassment (both felonies) for twice throwing a Koran into university toilets.

Pace University — which stands just four blocks from Ground Zero in Manhattan and lost four students and over 40 alumni on September 11, 2001 — initially classified the incidents as vandalism. But after some prodding by Muslim students and the perpetually outraged Council for American Islamic Relations, university officials capitulated and referred the matter to the New York City Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force, which, naturally, deemed the student’s actions “hate crimes.”

Ridiculous as they are, these stories help highlight a perverse double standard that has emerged in recent years, one that elevates Islam to a protected status, while continuing to treat Christianity as the source of all that ails America.

The double standard explains why Kansas City International Airport recently added several foot washing basins in restrooms to accommodate Muslim taxi cab drivers who use them to prepare for daily Islamic prayer. It also makes clear why Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport allows Muslim taxi cab drivers to refuse to carry passengers possessing alcoholic beverages or accompanied by seeing-eye dogs, because in Islam, alcohol is forbidden, and dogs are considered unclean.

Meanwhile, last Christmas the Seattle-Tacoma Airport removed its Christmas trees because of their religious symbolism.

Even worse is the double standard in some of America’s public schools, where an intense effort to “Islamicize” curricula and textbooks is underway. In California, groups like the Council on Islamic Education and the Islamic Society of North America have succeeded in integrating the fundamentals of reading and writing with lessons about the life of Muhammad and the finer points of Sharia Law.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently decided that parents of Christian students could not sue a school district where seventh-graders pretended to be Muslims for three weeks during a course in world history. The court — the same one which previously ruled that the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance are “unconstitutional” — insisted that the role-playing game, which included having children recite Muslim prayers and lines from the Koran, did not violate anybody’s constitutional rights. In fact, the Ninth Circuit (incidentally the most overturned appeals court in the country) declared that the activities weren’t “overt religious exercises” that would raise concerns under the First Amendment prohibition of “establishment of religion.”

While it is easy to see that a religious double standard exists among our elites, identifying its source is rather more difficult. A misplaced multiculturalism and habitual anti-Christian bigotry are certainly parts of the problem, but its primary source is fear. It’s a fear that stems from the knowledge that behind each public statement of outrage and press release alleging desecration of the Koran, behind each cry for equality and respect, there is an underlying threat of violence. This fear is certainly rational, because radical Muslims have proven time and time again that perceived affronts to Islam, if not fully atoned for, may be answered with violence.

Fear prevents the mainstream media — which no doubt remember the fate of journalists killed for publishing cartoons deemed insulting to Islam — from linking blatant acts of Islamic terrorism in the United States to religion. When 22-year-old Muslim student Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar deliberately rammed his SUV into a crowd at the University of North Carolina in order to, in his words, “punish the government of the U.S.” for invading Iraq and other Muslim nations, most of the media were silent as to the cause. When in court Taheri-azar insisted his rampage was the “will of Allah,” some in the media still seemed dumbfounded, calling the actions of this unassuming honors student “inexplicable.”

Fear also explains, though scarcely justifies, why Pace University officials reacted so harshly to the Koran-dunking incident. (The offending student could face four years in prison.) Perhaps University officials recall how Newsweek’s story falsely claiming that American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet sparked deadly demonstrations in Afghanistan and violent protests throughout the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the liberal establishment can continue mocking evangelicals and spouting anti-Christian bigotry without fear of reprisal. When talk show host Rosie O’Donnell alleged that, “…radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America,” her vitriol was met not with murderous threats or violent demonstrations but with verbal responses refuting the substance of her claim.

Christians responded similarly this spring when Burlington Township High School in New Jersey held a mock terror attack and chose to portray the bad guys as members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the “New Crusaders.” The school said the group did not believe in separation of church and state and was seeking justice because the daughter of one of its members had been expelled for praying before class. I am not aware of any Christian group that has violently taken over a school anywhere in the world. But there are frequent attacks by Islamists on teachers and students. Yet the school’s authorities felt no hesitancy in labeling Christians as potential terrorists.

The double standard tells us a lot about America’s elites. They cower before Islam while bashing the faith held by the great majority of Americans.

As a fresh-faced rifle platoon leader in February 1968, second Lieutenant Peter Pace came across as a rather tentative leader. Quiet and unassuming, Pace was dropped into Hue City (the South Vietnam city serving as ground zero for the Tet Offensive), and at first, his men didn’t quite know what to make of him.

“I remember early on the guys were filling sandbags for a position and I-trying to find my way as a new leader-went down and started filling sandbags with them,” Pace recalled in a 2004 interview with American Forces Press Service. “One of the squad leaders said to me, ‘Lieutenant, we’ve got this. We need you to be thinking about the next patrol or the next thing that we have to do. We can do the sandbags. We need you to do what you’re supposed to do.’”

It was perhaps the last time that Pace appeared unsure of his duties as a military leader. Peter Pace-known in Pentagon circles as “Perfect Pete” for his immaculate military bearing-went on to become a four-star General, then, in 2005, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces. As chairman, Pace became an effective advocate for President Bush’s military policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last week, however, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that he would not be recommending Pace for a second two-year term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Though Secretary Gates insisted Pace’s termination had “absolutely nothing to do” with his performance (in fact, Gates told Pace that he would have liked to have re-nominated him), Gates said, “I have decided that at this moment in our history, the nation, our men and women in uniform and Gen. Pace himself would not be well-served by a divisive ordeal in selecting the next chairman.”

The question is: why? Why has the Bush Administration taken the nearly unprecedented step of firing Pace after only two years, making his the shortest chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in over 40 years?

There is a rumor circulating that the administration’s refusal to re-nominate Pace stemmed from his recent remarks about homosexuality.

What did he say that was so offensive?

Pace-committing the only sin left in Washington, D.C., that is, making a personal moral judgment about sexual conduct-revealed that it was his personal belief that homosexual acts are-wait for it-”immoral.” It was rumored that some Democrats were prepared to make Pace’s remarks an “issue” had he been re-nominated, and that this fueled the administration’s decision to dismiss him. I pray that Pace’s comments did not enter into the administration’s calculus. Either way, the furor that followed Pace’s remarks last spring proves that even at a time when cheating politicians and congressional scandals are so
commonplace as to become cliché, political correctness rules the day.

Speculation aside, it’s clear the administration dismissed Pace because it feared a fierce confirmation battle. In fact, Pace has since said he was urged to retire months ago in order to, as Pace recalls, “take the issue off the table.” It was assumed that Senate Armed Forces Committee Democrats were preparing to use Pace’s confirmation hearings as an opportunity to dredge up old battles, and that Gates therefore urged the president to dismiss Pace in order to avoid “contentious confirmation hearings,” which, according to Gates, would not be in “the best interests of the country.” A defense official close to the
debate went further, telling the Washington Times that, “the administration’s view was that this would not be helpful to protect America’s security.”

But these excuses ring hollow. If Gates and President Bush truly considered Pace the best man to lead the military, why would they back down from a fight, especially given the administration’s tendency to stand up for its high-ranking appointees (such as Attorney General Gonzales) and policy priorities (such as “comprehensive” immigration reform)?

Moreover, how does jettisoning General Pace make the politics of Iraq any less “contentious”? Pace’s dismissal won’t assuage the anti-war set. Rather, it will embolden congressional liberals to step up efforts to thwart the administration’s Iraq policies.

But, the manner in which General Pace left his position as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reveals as much about the man as it does about conditions on Capital Hill.

When notified that he would not be re-nominated for a second two-year term, Pace was given the opportunity to resign so as to avoid making it look as though he had been fired. But Pace refused, and later explained, “…I could not do that for one very fundamental reason, and that is that [a service member] in Baghdad should not think - ever - that his chairman, whoever that person is, could have stayed in the battle and voluntarily walked off the battlefield. …That is unacceptable as a leadership thing in my mind.”

Pace’s decision derived in part from his experiences forty years ago in Vietnam when, according to Pace, he “left some guys on the battlefield in Vietnam who lost their lives following 2nd Lt. Pace. And I promised myself then that I will serve this country until I was no longer needed - that it’s not my decision. I need to be told that I’m done.”

In a recent interview about his career, Pace, with the humility that comes with four decades as a Marine, said, “If you think you’re a good leader, then you’re probably not.” Though Pace, the first Marine Corps officer to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, may not consider himself a good leader, he is a great credit to the United States Armed Forces, and an honorable example for the men and women who have put their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers who have expected, needed and received great leadership from “Perfect Pete.”