It is surely a failing not to have heard of Gerald Warner before, but courtesy of the recent fire at the Wasilla Bible Church attended by Sarah Palin in far-off Alaska (Palin was not in the church at the time), this Daily Telegraph writer has leapt on to our radar in full cry, as follows:

If – and it is still a big if – arson was committed by militant homosexuals or liberals simply driven by hatred of Palin, then that is a phenomenon that should greatly concern the American public. Anti-Christian jihadism fuelled by secularism is as unacceptable as that driven by militant Islam. If Wasilla Church was burned by arsonists making an ideological point, that is terrorism. If what is suspected turns out to be true, the burning of Wasilla Bible Church is a metaphor for the onslaught against Christianity that aggressive secularism has mounted in Europe and which, under the influence of the morally degenerate Democrat party, is now invading the United States. This may be a significant warning to complacent Christians.

Great stuff. Gerald Warner, as a Catholic (and apparently something of a "jihadist" himself), is a member of an institution whose history is littered with crusades, burnings at the stake, persecution of gays, and the perpetuation of the biggest pack of lies that the world has seen - so would seem to be in a poor position to try working the moral equivalence angle. Gays and liberal secularists as jihadists!

This is the funny bit. In the last few years secular liberals have been uncompromising in what they say about religion, and the targets of their criticism have squealed and complained as loudly as if they felt real flames licking round their feet. The churches answered criticism in the past with murder; if they still had the upper hand would they now restrict themselves to their critics' choice of weapon – words? The foam-flecked variety issuing from Warner suggests not.

Let us look at some comparisons. In Afghanistan the Taliban stop girls going to school, beat up women who show a millimeter of skin, ban music, kill gays, and in general force their choice of life and belief on everyone, thus illustrating the less charming aspects of enforced observance of religious orthodoxy under which most of humanity has suffered for most of history. By comparison, secular liberals of Europe and North America say that they think religion is a load of nonsense and that religious folk should keep their fantasies to themselves. Some comparison, eh? Some jihad! Its effectiveness, though, is a sign of insecurity among the faithful. Mark Twain defined faith as "believing what you know ain't so", and the level of insecurity among the faithful when criticised suggests that almost all of them really agree.

Gerald Warner and his kind strain hard to whip up a belief in a moral equivalence between the inhumanity, intolerance, coercion and violence of their own religions' histories and the criticism and disdain with which secularists view them now. I suspect that Warner really hopes that balaclava-wearing, Kalashnikov-toting secular liberals flew some paraffin-laden model aeroplanes into the Wasilla Bible Church. If so it would make the excesses of religion's crushing imposition on the human spirit all ok, because it would show that liberal secularism has become the very thging it criticises.

I wonder whether, in the dialogue of the deaf that this quarrel has become, a few reminders might be in order. Secularism is the view that religious outlooks, though perfectly entitled to exist and have their say, are not entitled to a bigger slice of the public pie than any other self-constituted, self-appointed, self-selected and self-serving civil society organisation. Yet the religious persistently ask for special treatment: public money for their "faith-based" schools, seats in the House of Lords, exemption from laws inconvenient to their prejudices, and so endlessly on. They even have the cheek to ask for "respect" for their silly and antiquated beliefs; and in Geneva at the Human Rights Council the Islamic countries are trying to subvert the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because it is inconvenient to their medieval, sexist, intolerant outlook.

Secularists in the west say to the apologists of the religions: your beliefs are your choice, so take your place in the queue. They also say: you've had it your own way for a very long time - and committed a lot of crimes in the process - and you still fancy yourself entitled, but you aren't. You don't smell too good at times, so don't try to tell me what I can read, see on TV, do in my private time, think or say. In fact, keep your sticky fingers off my life. Believe what you like but don't expect me to admire or excuse you because of it: rather the contrary, given the fairy-stories in question. And when you are a danger to the lives and liberties of others, which alas is too frequently the wont of your ilk, we will speak out against you as loudly, persistently, and uncompromisingly as we can.