Christmas is a holiday that persecutes the lonely the frayed and the rejected.

It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.

Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race religion or political views that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good.

But I say to you Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

It is funny that men who are supposed to be scientific cannot get themselves to realise the basic principle of physics that action and reaction are equal and opposite that when you persecute people you always rouse them to be strong and stronger.

American and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America Israel is a strong democracy a symbol of freedom and an oasis of liberty a home to the oppressed and persecuted.

Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution. And whether the cause is justice for the persecuted compassion for the needy and the sick or mercy for the child waiting to be born there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.