When liberals debate me about my book, "Persecution," they invariably argue that the premise is flawed. Christians, being in the majority in America, can't possibly be the subjects of discrimination here. Oh?

It is a clever ploy to argue that a majority can't possibly be discriminated against. It dispenses with the need to deal with the evidence and come up with some rationale for the hundreds and hundreds of cases I chronicle.

But what about the idea that a majority, by definition, can't experience discrimination? Isn't that what reverse discrimination is all about? Would the critics truly argue that majorities don't have a deliberate disadvantage in affirmative action cases, such as in the Michigan Law School admissions case?

Besides, if we are such a nation of Christians, can you explain to me how it is that millions of babies are killed in the womb each year in this country with the protection of the state? Even if Christians constitute a nominal majority in America, can it really be credibly argued that Christian morality is in the ascendance in our culture?

Put aside for a moment the abortion issue and the case pending before the Supreme Court concerning "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. And let's not dwell right now on the ABC News special "Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci," which reportedly gives credence to the harebrained and scholarly-bankrupt blasphemy -- spawned by a popular novel, "The Da Vinci Code" -- that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene. And let's not even consider the Supreme Court's recent reaffirmation of moral relativism as our society's guiding light.

Rather, let's focus on a recent ruling by a Denver County Circuit Judge in a child custody case. Worldnetdaily.com reports that Judge John W. Coughlin awarded joint custody to adoptive mother Cheryl Clark's former lesbian lover, Elsey McLeod, even though she had no legal relationship to the child. But that's the least troublesome aspect of the ruling.

When Clark became a Christian and renounced her homosexual behavior, she reportedly broke off the relationship with McLeod. Judge Coughlin, in the joint custody order, directed Clark "to "make sure that there is nothing in the religious upbringing or teaching that the minor child is exposed to that can be considered homophobic."

In other words, Clark is forbidden from deterring her child from homosexual behavior or to speak disapprovingly of the homosexual lifestyle. Presumably she would be in violation if she gave the child a Bible or allowed her to attend a Sunday school class or any other meeting in which homosexuality was unfavorably discussed.

This is reminiscent of a bill the California legislature passed last year -- AB 2651 (also discussed in my book) -- in which foster children could have reported their foster parents for a civil-rights violation if they refused to allow them to dress like a member of the opposite sex. This bill, among other things, would also have established a toll-free telephone number for social workers to provide to foster children to encourage them to report "physical, sexual or emotion abuse," including incidents concerning their "sexual orientation or gender identity."

Admittedly, Governor Gray Davis vetoed the bill, presumably because he was in a tough re-election campaign. But in 2003, a different version of the bill was introduced. The proponents of these measures are not to be denied.

These cases reveal the tolerance agenda for the fraud that it is. There is nothing about the California legislation that is tolerant toward Christian foster parents. Indeed, it is demonstrably intolerant toward them.

Nor is there anything about Judge Coughlin's order forbidding "homophobic" teaching that is remotely tolerant toward Clark. To the secular elite, tolerance isn't treating other people with civility and decency. It is the compulsory abandonment of certain values that the elite finds unacceptable. It requires you to violate your conscience. Your First Amendment freedoms of religion and speech mean nothing if you run afoul of the dogma.

As attorney Mathew D. Staver, of Liberty Counsel noted, courts cannot "give parents a no-win decision of either abandoning their Christian beliefs or abandoning their children. … It takes no stretch of the imagination to envision a judge finding the mother in contempt of court for merely teaching her daughter the Biblical truths on homosexuality."

I shudder at the prospect that so many unsuspecting people are buying into the lie that we are not engaged in a culture war, that the forces seeking to undermine Judeo-Christian values are aided by such naivete and that our entire library of liberties ultimately hangs in the balance.