The Religious Folks are always complaining that us 'secular' people, the government and the press discriminate against them.

Even now that mench Bill O’Reilly fears for Christmas if Democrats get control of Congress.

Steven Waldman at Huffington considers the position of a practicing Christian.

Yes there are those cases. But what this weeks important series on government treatment of religion in the New York Times shows is that for every case of a person of faith being discriminated against there's several more of local or federal government giving religious entities special treatment.

Rather than picking over yet another controversial crèche scene, the Times looked at the various ways that religious organizations are given PREFERENCE over the non religious. Religious hospitals don't have to abide by labor laws; churches can fire people for being too old without being accused of age discrimination; or they can trample through zoning laws designed protect the environment. Most significant, religious entitties of all sorst -- including well heeled ones -- get enormous tax breaks not available to for profits or even, in some cases, to secular non-profits.

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