That's what I take from this column by the Union-Tribune's Logan Jenkins. Last week, Sheriff's deputies discovered a dozen pilfered Baby Jesuses strewn in a parking lot.

This discovery prompted some good and some bad from Jenkins. Jenkins is correct that this wasn't a religious hate crime, but a childish prank.

However, Jenkins takes it a step further and argues that Christians are a special case and that when there are anti-Christian crimes or speech in America, that Christians just have to take it. That is, Christians are less equal than everyone else.

What if the thefts had involved cherished symbols of minority religions? What if Jewish or Muslim artifacts had been stolen and later unceremoniously dumped in a parking lot?

Would those thefts be decried as hate crimes? Would there be a greater hue and cry? Would there be more sensitivity?

Well, you know the answer.

It's yes.

And in my view, that's as it should be. [emphasis in original]

This is the logic of the affirmative action movement writ large. If you're in the majority, you're entitled to less consideration than others. Less protection from the law. Less fair treatment from public institutions. Less sympathy from newspaper columnists.

And then Jenkins goes on to the "exception proves the rule" argument.

Even incidents like the recent wrong-headed exclusion of young Christian dancers in Chula Vista is the exception that proves the cultural rule. The nation is lopsidedly Christian and, barring an alien or Chinese invasion, always will be.

But why does this happen in the first place? The Christian dancers were prepared to go on stage after a local rabbi had already lit a menorah there. What other than the spectre of political correctness and anti-Christian sentiment can explain the drastically different responses?

What other religious group would be so proudly confident as to display sacred symbols, fashioned out of plastic, in their front yards for the whole neighborhood to feast its eyes upon?

Ahhhh, Christianity is now the religion that dare not speak its name. Reassuring.

I agree with Jenkins that this is not a hate crime -- frankly I'm opposed to hate crimes in general. A crime is a crime and generally criminals aren't loving the people they victimize. But if we're going to have the things on the books, they need to protect everyone -- including White Anglo Saxon Protestants.