Vice President Mike Pence wants you to believe that Christians in the U.S. are persecuted for their faith. During a recent speech at Liberty University, Pence said that it has become "fashionable" to ridicule the faithful. He seems to think that Christians in the U.S. face not only ridicule but discrimination based on their religious beliefs.
There are at least two points that need to be made here. The first, which Hemant Mehta (Friendly Atheist) clearly made in the post to which I linked above, is that Pence and his fellow Christian extremists have been using their faith as an excuse to openly discriminate against others. Their faith has become linked with bigotry against LGBTQ persons, for example, because of their history of using it to justify this bigotry. Criticizing them for this hardly amounts to persecution, discrimination, or anything of the sort. Telling Christians that they can not discriminate against others may be a blow to Christian privilege, but it is a far cry from persecution.
For the second point, we'll take a look at another post (update: link no longer active) by Hemant in which he tells us about a sitting Supreme Court Justice openly expressing bigotry toward atheists while continuing to serve on the court. Imagine a justice saying something like this about Christians. Christians would be justified in feeling upset about that. Of course, we atheists are supposed to hold our tongues and know our place. And yes, this is just one more in a long series of cases where government officials say horrible things about atheists and face zero consequences.
Perhaps Mike Pence will live long enough to see the day when the U.S. finally elects a Christian VP. Maybe public attitudes toward Christians will eventually become accepting enough that a Christian VP could be open about his or her Christian beliefs. It seems like that could be a long way off, but we can always hope (and pray).
