Just Fred wrote:

This may be a little off topic, but maybe it is ingrained in the Christian mindset to think of and perceive themselves as victims.  Sort of a Jesus identification thing? 

There is certainly Jesus-identifiation in suffering strongly proclaimed in the Epistle of Peter; the Christian mindset was probably more influenced by the terrible persecutions inflicted on the church of the first three centuries, first at the hands of the Jews (beginning iwith the stoning of Stephen the Deacon), then accelerating at the hands of the Romans.   This continued, sometimes intensely, other times less harshly until the Emporer Contantine was converted and issued the Edict of Milan in A.D. 314 making Christianity not only legal but the only legal religion of the Empire.  A couple centuries of relative tranquility followed until the rise of Islam.

The Anabaptists (Amish, Menonnite, and Brethren) suffered terrible persection in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries at the hands of other Christians.  The early pre-Constantinian martyrs and the more recent Anabaptist martyrs have been chronicled in a book found in almost every Amish household titled The Martyr's Mirror
 

The rememberane of the Martyrs is not just an Anabaptist custom.

Generations of Roman Catholics were shaped by hearing the names of the Martyrs listed in the Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I in the more modern missals) and so had at least a passing aquaintence with Lucy, Agatha, Perpetua and Felicity and, to a lesser extent, their ultimate struggle for the faith.  Nowadays that prayer is probably the least used in parish practice, and that is truly a shame.

Orthodox Christians hear a similar list of commemorated Martyrs in the Intercession of the Orthros, a list which includes Thekla, Barbara, Kieraki, Paraskavi, Fotini, and Marina.   And most Orthodox churches include numerous Icons--some life size, some larger-than-life--of various Martyrs. 

In all of those traditions, despite great outward dissimilarities there is nevertheless a living conscousness of what the Apostle Paul described as a "great cloud of witnesses".

O yeah--the Greek word for "witness"--is martyria.

I've found the 'We're the victims' attitude very perplexing.

Claiming they're not allowed to display the symbols of their faith?   You can't drive two miles without seeing half a dozen crosses mounted on the ubiquitious churches.  And who said they can't?

Backing laws that marginalize a segment of the population simply because they don't approve they they still claim victimhood?

IMO they're "professional victims".  That is to say, by claiming to be oppressed they can justify their reprehensible treatment of others.