Would Fox News Defend Tim Tebow If He Faced Mecca And Thanked Allah

Pray For Fox NewsFox News is once again dredging up a controversy where none exists. They have been in a hysterical frenzy over the supposed outrage of critics of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow and his gridiron genuflections.

Personally, I find it absurd, and even insulting, when a sports figure thanks God for their victory. It implies that the players on the opposite team are somehow allied with Satan or otherwise out of God’s favor. It further implies that God cares about the outcome of a ballgame as much as he does about the welfare of the world and the eternal souls of his children. But how people express their own spiritual beliefs is up to them and doesn’t rank very high on my outrage meter.

Fox News, on the other hand, is very disturbed by what appears to be an imaginary outcry in opposition to Tebow’s expression of faith. They have broadcast numerous stories vilifying Tebow’s critics, but have yet to identify a single one. They call Tebow “God’s Quarterback,” and lament his treatment by the secular press. Both Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson and America Live host Megyn Kelly have anchored recent segments speculating on what would occur if Tebow were Muslim instead of Christian. And both concluded that the reaction would be far more tolerant of Islamic expressions of faith.

Where on God’s green Earth did they get that idea? Coming from a network that has invented a War on Christmas and brazenly incited hateful opposition to a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan, calling it the “ground zero mosque,” this approach to their non-story is decidedly delusional. An even worse example is the recent controversy over the Learning Channel’s program about ordinary Muslim-American families in Dearborn, Michigan.

TLC’s All American Muslim has been the victim of rabid acrimony from anti-Islam organizations and individuals. These bigots have succeeded in getting some advertisers (notably Lowe’s Home Improvement Center) to remove their ads from the show. Their complaint is that the program is deceptive in that it shows only peaceful, patriotic, families that are just like every other American household, rather than sneering terrorists bent on slaughtering their infidel neighbors.

The evidence is clear that if Tebow were a practicing Muslim who praised Allah after every touchdown pass, the same bigots who protested TLC and Lowe’s would show up to blitz Tebow with racist slurs and insults. And Fox News would lead the parade with story after story about how disrespectful it is to shove in the face of American sports fans what Fox would characterize as the religious perversions of a people who want to destroy the country.

Fox was adamant about what they portrayed as the immorality of allowing an Islamic community center to be built two blocks from the former site of the World Trade Center. Why would they behave any differently if a celebrity sports figure openly displayed his reverence for Islam? And why would the Fox audience suddenly acquire a tolerance of religious diversity that they have never demonstrated before?

As I noted above, it doesn’t matter to me how Tebow celebrates his victories on the field. And to his credit, he has said that he doesn’t believe that God cares who wins or loses these games. But it is disturbing that a major, mainstream news enterprise overtly professes to spiritualize a game by anointing a player as “God’s Quarterback” and then fabricates a campaign against him in order to whip up an evangelical firestorm, all in the pursuit of controversy and, ultimately, ratings.

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6 thoughts on “Would Fox News Defend Tim Tebow If He Faced Mecca And Thanked Allah

  1. Great post.

    It’s funny, I only heard about the “War on Christmas” from my mother (a Fox News viewer). This was before I thought to worry too much about their content. When I quizzed her on it, I was really flummoxed by her ideas. She thought I was just ignorant because I usually perused the Totally Liberal Mainstream Media ™. I still never saw this war on Christmas. Also, I only heard about people being offended at “Merry Christmas” from conservatives. I never saw anything about this. I think it’s insensitive to wish Merry Christmas to a stranger, but I never saw anyone get offended.

    I’m not a sports fan, but I haven’t seen any stories about Tebow anywhere except Fox News (except for some sports clips I caught at a bar that had ESPN going – and those appeared to just be standard football clips). I would love to know who is criticizing him.

    I am sure that if any American sports figure ventured out of the culturally safe Christian expressions of faith, there would be all kinds of uproar – even on “liberal” MSNBC. There is no way that people would say “that’s cool”.

    • Don’t worry. You’re not crazy. The reason you haven’t heard about a War on Christmas or criticism of Tebow is because they are an invention of the news editors at Fox.

      • Funny, on a different forum, someone posted a discussion of an article in the NYTimes (oh, the librul media!). I read it, and found it to be very fair and balanced (oh the horror! I thought only Fox was fair and balanced!). The article says that Tebow is being mocked in a Facebook page and in Twitter feeds. I’m not interested enough to seek them out… but really there are Facebook pages that are for and against pretty much everything and Twitter hardly counts as “the media”. I know some people use it, fine, but really, if this is where the rage stems from, they are cherry-picking.

        http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/bruni-tim-tebows-gospel-of-optimism.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

  2. The retired college basketball coach Bobby Knight said, when asked why he didn’t pray with the players before a game like some of the other coaches, “because God doesn’t care about college basketball-that’s why”! These religious sports fanatics are bad and Tebow is one of the worst, but hey, that’s who he is. Let’s be honest though, if a devout Muslim were doing the same thing they would be jeapordizing their career, unless they were a real superstar.

    • The idea that a dvout muslim would be run out of the league if he was winning shows how naive you are about media and sports. Tebow is only an issue because the media knows that his religious ideas stir up anger by the 30% who are liberal idiots and the 30% Tea bag morons. Nobody cares if a player is a christian or a muslim, etc. This is all the media stiring up this garbage.

  3. As a Denver Broncos season ticketholder, I can assure you that no one in Denver cares about Tebow’s religiosity. He could be a devil-worshipper for all we care so long as he keeps winning games late in the 4th quarter.

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