Should I Be Offended by Ann Coulter?

Another typical Ann Coulter controversy has broken out.  This time the question is whether Coulter spoke offensively or even, as the interviewer seemed to suggest, anti-Semitically when she made the following comments in a recent interview, after being asked, in effect, what her perfect world would look like:

COULTER: Well, OK, take the Republican National Convention. People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America, they —

DEUTSCH: Christian — so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian?

COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny? * * * *

DEUTSCH: ...[Y]ou said I should not — we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or —

COULTER: Yeah.

Assuming Coulter was speaking in good faith, were her comments offensive or anti-Semitic?  I think not.  I take it that Coulter's understanding of her faith is that the New Testament represents religious truth, that those who hold contrary religious views are thus wrong, and that, as she says elsewhere in the interview, Judaism is a complentary faith to Christianity but remains "unperfected" by its denial of the divinity of Christ.  I may or not share Coulter's views; I may or may not think that she is herself mistaken in her beliefs.  But that is not in itself a basis for being offended.

Of course, Coulter is not immune from criticism.  From a non-faith perspective, one might question Coulter's own religious premises.  From an intra-faith perspective, one might question whether Coulter was speaking out of a genuine Christian spirit of faith and humility, or whether she was trivializing her own faith by using it as a talking point or, worse, as a vehicle in the age-old game of "epater le bourgeois."  And from either perspective, one could certainly challenge Coulter's blanket description of Republican conventioneers as uniformly Christian; indeed, it is probably that statement that is the most offensive in the interview.  But simply to bear witness on a fundamental disagreement about matters of faith is not, I think, offensive in and of itself.

Note that Coulter is not saying that non-Christans are wicked; only that they are wrong on a fundamental question.  We often disagree with others on fundamental questions, and yet we are able to co-exist with and even admire them.  I assume this is true of Coulter, too, at least as to some religious matters.  People who hold strong convictions on fundamental questions may well think others who don't share those convictions are wrong, and ought, all things considered, to change their convictions; this is true not only for religious individuals but for atheists, and not only for religious questions but also for other fundamental issues.  (Some might argue that this latter category is different because those disagreements at least can be conducted through publicly accessible reasons; we've been over this ground here before, and I'll just repeat that I find this distinction neither as true nor, in any event, as significant as others may.)  Not all of these disagreements are occasions for offense, of course.  One might question whether Coulter was genuinely trying to air a fundamental difference with others on matters of faith, or whether she was merely engaging in what David Bernstein calls "chauvinism."  And one might simply find Coulter's statement to be just another example of her tedious showmanship; I fall into this category.  But in general, I am not inclined to take offense over such statements.  Not every public acknowledgement that people actually hold firm and even exclusive convictions on ultimate questions should be treated as offensive, divisive, or a "gaffe."