Over the weekend, a movie called “God’s Not Dead 2” opened in theaters around the nation. I haven’t seen the film and don’t intend to -- I'm not going to give them my money, and if I'm going to watch a cheesy movie, I prefer one featuring rubber monsters battling for supremacy in Tokyo -- but I’ve been reading about it online.

Despite the “2” in its title, the film isn’t really a sequel. It’s a follow-up to an earlier movie. Both releases feature has-been and never-been actors and represent a fairly new genre in Christian filmmaking – call it the cinema of persecution.

The plot of “God’s Not Dead 2” concerns a public school teacher who is hauled into court for answering a student’s innocuous question about Jesus. The legal case somehow veers into questions of the existence of God and the truth of biblical accounts (something that simply could not happen in an American courtroom). At the end (spoiler alert!) a pastor is slapped in handcuffs and dragged off to jail for no good reason.

The film may find an audience among Christian fundamentalists who truly believe they are being persecuted. The rest of us will just have to sit back and laugh.

Persecution? Religion in America never had it so good. When I was writing my 2014 book Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn’t Give You The Right To Tell Other People What To Do, I did some research into the many privileges extended to religious groups in America. Here are just a few:

* They receive complete tax exemption by mere dint of their existence. Unlike other non-profits, houses of worship, ministerial groups and religious entities don’t have to apply for tax-exempt status. They are assumed to have it as soon as they form.

* They are exempt from mandatory financial reporting laws. Most secular non-profits must once a year file a detailed financial document (a Form 990) with the IRS that must be made available for public inspection. Houses of worship are exempt from this requirement.

* Special laws govern church audits. Secular groups can be audited at the merest suspicion of wrong-doing. By act of Congress, proposed audits for houses of worship are subjected to heightened scrutiny. All church audits must be approved by a high-ranking IRS official.

* Non-religious non-profits are restricted in the amount of lobbying they can do at the federal level. Under federal law, churches and their “integrated auxiliary” groups are exempt from these regulations. They are not required to report how much lobbying they do or how much they spend to do it. Only a handful of states apply any oversight to church lobbying.

* Religious groups are often treated with great deference by secular authorities. It is often difficult to bring the leaders of large and powerful religious groups to justice, even when they have clearly committed crimes. If you doubt this, consider the pedophilia crisis in the Catholic Church.

Now, just to be clear, there are plenty of religious leaders who look at a list like this (and it is by no means comprehensive) and feel grateful for it. Most progressive and moderate faith leaders acknowledge their position of privilege and realize they have little grounds to complain in this free nation where we place a great premium on freedom of conscience. (Many progressive religious leaders, instead of crying about phony persecution in the United States, spend their time advocating on behalf of people in other countries who suffering from real forms of religious persecution.)

It’s the right-wing fundamentalists who won’t stop yapping about “persecution.” So what really is this “persecution”? More often than not, it’s one of two things: spirited opposition to fundamentalist attempts to run our lives or reasonable requests from non-Christian or non-theistic groups for some of the same rights the fundamentalists take for granted.

Remember some of the recent flaps over Muslim groups seeking the right to build and open mosques? In one Tennessee county, Muslims had to fight in court for years for that right. How often does this happen to Christian groups in America?

Or think about the situation that is currently playing out in at a public high school in Franklin County, Tenn. Students there have launched a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) and seek the same right to meet that is already cheerfully extended to two Christian clubs at the school. Some people in town have raised such a fuss that the school board is considering placing restrictions on student groups with the aim of shutting out the GSA. The Liberty Counsel, a Religious Right group run by attorney Mat Staver, has offered to assist the school board in its scheme to find a way to snuff the GSA out of existence.

Incidents like this expose groups like the Liberty Counsel and the larger Religious Right movement for the hypocrites that they are. Imagine the stink Staver would be raising right now if this school were trying to stop conservative Christian students from meeting. He’d be huffing and puffing about "persecution" and threatening a lawsuit, yet he doesn’t want an identically situated non-religious student group to have that right – even though a federal law guarantees it to them.

There is some religious persecution in America – but it’s hardly affecting the conservative Christian community. Their position is one of privilege, and it’s high time they acknowledged that.

P.S. “God’s Not Dead 2” wasn’t screened for critics prior to release – a sure sign it’s a dog. The film has a 14 percent “fresh” rating on the aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. Of course, for hard-core believers in the Religious Right’s persecution narrative, this is just proof that secular elites are trying to drag down the movie. It becomes proof of more persecution!