Fox News Celebrates Supreme Court Decision Upholding Christian Theocracy

Posted by Mark NC on May 5, 2014 at 12:37 pm. 3 Comments :

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America includes a stipulation that the government “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The legal interpretation of that clause, with more than 200 years of precedence, holds that proceedings of official bodies of government may not engage in sectarian religious activity as it puts the imprimatur of the state on the particular spiritual practice.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of the town council of Greece, N.Y, to offer prayers in the opening of their council meetings. The Court explicitly stated that they regarded these prayers as permissible even though they were predominantly Christian. The justification for the ruling was based on the absurd notion that the prayers were merely ceremonial and not religious.

“As a practice that has long endured, legislative prayer has become part of our heritage and tradition, part of our expressive idiom, similar to the Pledge of Allegiance.”

And joining the celebration of what is ostensibly ceremonial is Fox News, who cheered the decision with a joyful declaration that it was “A Win For Religion.”

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The language that Fox News used to report this decision demonstrates that it was indeed a matter of faith. After all, they didn’t declare it to be a “A Win For Ceremony.” The ceremonial argument is a thinly veiled excuse to permit proselytizing for Christianity. What’s more, the argument that reciting exclusively Christian prayers does not violate the establishment clause of the Constitution is a gross misunderstanding of the law. Such activity blatantly favors a specific belief and excludes all others with differing beliefs. To illustrate the point, just imagine the reaction if the town council decided to offer a Muslim prayer at the opening of the session. It would create a deafening outcry from Christians insisting they were offended by the invocation.

For evidence of that, take the example of a recent event in Colorado. The students at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins were led by another student in the Pledge of Allegiance with the words “under God” replaced by the words “under Allah.” This was met with harsh criticism by Christianists in the community and the media, including Fox’s own resident religious bigot, Todd Starnes.

First of all it should be noted that Allah is the Arabic (not Islamic) word for God, and both Muslims and Arab Christians use it. Secondly, why would it be offensive for Muslim-Americans to pledge their allegiance to the American flag? Isn’t that something we should encourage, or are we only open to recognizing Muslims who hate us? More to the point, the criticism reveals the true intent of the religious extremists who aspire to force their religion onto everyone else through the use of official forums in government and schools. That is precisely the behavior that the conservatives on the Supreme Court sanctioned today.

For Fox News to report this decision with a headline that describes it as “A Win For Religion” is further evidence that they regard the issue as one of faith, despite their denials and those of the Court. Their own words betray their not-very-hidden motives.

Fox News Reporter And His Publisher In Bogus Book Marketing Scheme?

Posted by Mark NC on April 2, 2014 at 4:39 pm. 2 Comments :

When it comes to making up fake stories in order to advance a partisan, right-wing agenda, nobody does it quite as well or as often as Fox News. Generally it involves deceptively spinning some event or purposefully mischaracterizing the comments of a Democrat. But frequently they will manufacture a phony story from scratch, and that may be what happened with this one by Fox News reporter Todd Starnes.

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Starnes is perhaps the Fox figure who is most fixated on the perceived persecution of Christians in America. He has produced story after story on the same subject with alleged examples of innocent believers being harassed, oppressed, or maligned. However, many of his yarns turn out to be fables that are proven to be false when examined in full.

This week Starnes reported on a five year old girl whose father claims she was prohibited from praying in her school’s cafeteria. No one else can corroborate the charge. The school administration investigated and found no evidence to back up the claim. And there is no policy at the school that would prohibit a student from praying at lunchtime. This how Starnes began his story:

“A Florida school district is giving teachers a refresher course on religious liberty after the parents of a five-year-old kindergarten student said a teacher told their daughter that she was not allowed to pray before eating her lunch time meal.

“Marcos Perez, of Oviedo, Fla., said the incident occurred earlier this month in the lunch room at Carillon Elementary School.”

However, Starnes left out a pretty significant bit of information regarding his personal relationship with the family in the story. The Orlando Sentinel reported that Marcos Perez, the father of the girl, is also the Vice-President of Sales for Charisma House, a Christian book publisher that just happens to be publishing Starnes’ own book about – guess what – discrimination against Christians: “God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values.” That is a fact that Starnes failed to disclose in his story. [Note: After this association was revealed by the Sentinel, Starnes edited his column to add his relationship with the girl’s father] It can hardly be seen as an inadvertent omission when Starnes’ story includes quotes from a man he surely knows without revealing that fact.

So to recap: Starnes has a book coming out soon that describes alleged episodes of discrimination against hapless Christians. A Christian schoolgirl is allegedly forbidden from praying in a story that could have come right out of Starnes’ book. And the beleaguered child is the daughter of the man responsible for selling the book and coming up with attention-getting marketing schemes. But I’m sure it is all just a harmless coincidence.

This is How Hobby Lobby Practices Their Allegedly ‘Christian’ Values

Posted by Mark NC on March 29, 2014 at 1:46 pm. 31 Comments :

This week the Supreme Court heard a case brought by the arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby. The company seeks an exemption from the mandate in the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) that requires employers to offer insurance plans that include coverage for contraceptives. The basis for their request is that they are a “Christian” enterprise and that they believe that certain methods of contraception are de facto abortion.

The problem with their legal argument is that science does not regard contraception as abortion, so the belief of the company’s owners is factually false. What’s more, they are asserting that a corporation can have a religious affiliation just like a person. That’s a strained proposition unless you believe that a corporation also has a soul, is capable of sin, and is subject to divine judgement. Do good corporations go to Heaven?

However, even if we were to accept their assertion of a religious objection to the mandate, Hobby Lobby can cannot seriously claim to have a spiritual conflict with the law as regards contraception, or even abortion. That’s because, despite the company’s owner saying that “Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions,” their business does engage in practices that violate their professed beliefs.

Hobby Lobby pays millions of dollars to stock their shelves with cheap products made in China, a country where abortion is legal and is even provided by the government for free – when they aren’t forcing it on women who want their babies. It is impossible to accept that the company is unconditionally opposed to a voluntary form of preventive health care that obviates the need for an abortion, while supporting a system that encourages abortion outright. If Hobby Lobby can do business with China when the profit motive compels them to, they cannot simultaneously pretend that an American woman having access to an insurance policy that includes coverage for contraception is some sort of abomination against their Lord.

Hobby Lobby’s hypocrisy, of course, is not the only reason they should lose this case. It would be frightening if the Supreme Court ruled that a corporation can have a religious belief. That would set the stage for any business to discriminate against employees for anything from race or sexual orientation to facial hair or consumption of pork. It would enable some companies to seek an exemption to ObamaCare if they believe that only faith healing is in accordance with their religion.

For Republicans, and their PR division, Fox News, to cheer on the Hobby Lobby case represents a severe departure from their professed principles. While they falsely allege that ObamaCare allows the government to come between the patient and the doctor (in fact, the government is merely attempting to prevent insurance companies from doing so), they are embracing a ruling that would give that power to every corporation.

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Permitting businesses to dictate what sort of health care their employees can have is not an expression of the individual liberties that conservatives pretend to favor. And it’s even more offensive when corporate high priests impose their religious beliefs on the people who work for them. Especially when those beliefs are discarded in order to increase profits.

Constitution Nazi: Sarah Palin Calls Constitution “Irrelevant” To Non-Religious Americans

Posted by Mark NC on December 8, 2013 at 11:07 am. 19 Comments :

A few weeks ago Sarah Palin said the nastiest thing she could think of about Pope Francis, all because he took a stand against economic inequality. She called him a liberal (ouch). A couple of days later she had second thoughts and apologized to the Pontiff, who probably couldn’t have cared less. But that wasn’t the end of her pontificating on faith.

Sarah Palin

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Last week Palin made an appearance to peddle her “War On Christmas” book to the Tea-vangelicals at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. Her standard stump speech was typically littered with patriotic cliches and liberal bashing. But she introduced a new theme in this theo-con venue that goes a step further than her routine divisiveness and exclusionist rhetoric, saying that…

Palin: …our Constitution was created wholly for a moral and religious people and our Constitution would be irrelevant and impossible to follow, it would be no good, it would be inadequate for any other people.

So Sarah Palin, and her Liberty U. hosts who heartily agreed with her, regard the United States Constitution as a document that is “irrelevant” and “inadequate” to all but the devoutly religious like themselves. Never mind that the first amendment explicitly states that there shall be “no establishment of religion.” Palin is essentially denying the benefits of constitutional liberties to the 20% of Americans who describe themselves as non-religious. For these wayward heathens the Constitution is “impossible to follow.” In fact, she goes so far as to say that the absence of religion removes all reason to follow it.

Palin: [T]here will be no reason to follow our Constitution because it is a moral and religious people who understand that there is something greater than self, we are to live selflessly, and we are to be held accountable by our creator, so that is what our Constitution is based on.

Where Palin gets the notion that understanding the Constitution requires living selflessly she didn’t bother to explain. However, if she believes that, she has a funny way of showing it. Was she being selfless when she betrayed the people of her state so that she could pursue a lucrative career as a talking head at Fox News? Are her positions against food stamps, health care, the minimum wage, and tax fairness for the wealthy (like herself) examples of selflessness?

What’s more, her assertion that the Constitution is based on being “held accountable by our creator” was apparently manufactured from the thin air circulating between her ears. Nothing in the Constitution even hints at that. To the contrary, it is evident that the Founders intended to place the power to govern in the hands of the people and their designated representatives, not their deities.

The hypocritical and false piety of grifters like Palin is all too common coming from right-wingers who wish they could restrict our nation’s liberties to just themselves. It’s the sort of country club constitutionality that forbids membership for people who are different, like minorities, immigrants, and those unclean peasants who populate our working class. But rarely do cretins like Palin come right out and say that, unless you believe like they do, you are incapable of understanding freedom and are therefore undeserving of it. And when they do come right out and say it, they demonstrate that they know as little about the Constitution as they do about morality.

The Anti-Pope: Rush Limbaugh Pimps For The Money Lenders Lobby

Posted by Mark NC on November 29, 2013 at 11:34 am. 25 Comments :

Poor Jesus. After going to all the trouble of throwing the Money Lenders out of the temple, now he has to deal with cretins like Rush Limbaugh who think that the church founded in his name is beholden to secular profiteers and godless corporations.

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How else could Limbaugh explain his opinion that the Catholic church would be lost “If it weren’t for capitalism?” It is astonishing that the people who most aggressively impose their religious beliefs on others, who demand that the whole of society celebrate their holidays and insist that their values be codified into law and school curriculum, these people seem to have the shallowest grasp of the faith they profess. And Limbaugh is not alone in his Adoration of Greed. A few years ago Bill O’Reilly said on his Fox News program that…

“Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born. Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable.”

O’Reilly actually believes that this country should be grateful that Jesus came along because the holiday commemorating his birth is such a boon to businesses. Now that’s the Christmas Spirit, isn’t it.

Limbaugh’s tirade was sparked by a recent paper authored by Pope Francis that articulated a version of Christianity wherein a moral society cared for the least of its citizens. He explicitly repudiated Republican values like “trickle-down economics” and preached that economic “inequality is the root of social ills.” That is the sort of talk that unhinges right-wingers whose greatest fear is to be lumped in with the unclean masses who, ironically, are the producers and consumers of the goods their businesses peddle.

All of this comports with the Christian hypocrite dogma spewed by political hacks who are only trying to exploit people who follow Christ’s teachings. These pundi-vangelists couldn’t care less about faith or service. However, the Republican Party shares something in common with the worst aspects of the Christian church. They are both trying to sell stories on faith to ill-informed people who are motivated by fear. But these religious scam artists are only concerned with their own welfare. They have no real compassion or generosity. Their tunnel-blind self-interest is a stark affirmation of the wisdom of the revered Catholic Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife, who said…

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

Fox Nation vs. Reality: The U.S. Closes Imaginary Vatican City Embassy

Posted by Mark NC on November 27, 2013 at 10:38 am. 17 Comments :

In it’s ongoing struggle to find evermore outrageous atrocities to attribute to President Obama, Fox Nation has reported that Catholic groups are appalled that the United States is planning to close its embassy in Vatican City. There is just one little problem.

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The United States does not have an embassy in Vatican City. Nor does any other country. The Vatican is simply too small to host any of these facilities, so they are actually headquartered in Rome. The truth of the matter is that the U.S. is closing one of its offices in Rome that houses the ambassador to the Vatican, and relocating it to a much larger compound that also houses the U.S. embassy to Italy. It will continue to have its own building and entrance, and its even a little closer to the Vatican itself.

This hasn’t stopped the right-wing media circus from hyperventilating furiously about some sort of imagined insult to Catholics. The Fox Nationalists, quoting from the “Moonie” Washington Times, which was quoting from Breitbart “made up” News, said that “The Obama administration, in what’s been called an egregious slap in the face to the Vatican, has moved to shut down the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.” That actually goes even further into false territory because it doesn’t simply suggest a relocation, but an elimination, neither of which are true.

It is curious that this particular crockery should erupt in the days following a rather remarkable publication from the Pope that condemns unfettered capitalism as abusive to the poor and other excluded members of society that the church is duty bound to protect. The Pope even went so far as to repudiate the conservative gospel of “trickle-down economics” as a theory that “has never been confirmed by the facts.”

Could it be that the Pope’s unambiguous support for income equality and the moral principle that “all citizens have dignified work, education and healthcare,” has prompted the conservative fib factory to invent a new controversy as a distraction from a papal declaration that eviscerates conservative values?

Pope Francis: Economic Inequality “Is The Root Of Social Ills”

Posted by Mark NC on November 26, 2013 at 3:19 pm. 7 Comments :

A couple of months ago, Pope Francis stunned many of his right-wing leaning flock when he came out strongly opposed to the economic inequality that has fractured many nations, including the Untied States. His admonition that “The world has become an idolator of this god called money,” could not have been a clearer denunciation of the chasm that separates the wealthy minority from the other 99% of society. Well, he’s done it again.

In an official Vatican “Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel), The Pope went into even more detail about the greater harm of the greed and power associated with world markets and unfettered capitalism. I’ll let him tell it:

“Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.”

“Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded.”

“In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.”

“While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation.”

“In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market.”

“As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems. Inequality is the root of social ills.”

“The economy can no longer turn to remedies that are a new poison, such as attempting to increase profits by reducing the work force and thereby adding to the ranks of the excluded.”

“Politics, though often denigrated, remains a lofty vocation and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good. […] I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor!. It is vital that government leaders and financial leaders take heed and broaden their horizons, working to ensure that all citizens have dignified work, education and healthcare.”

As I have noted in the past, Fox News is the closest thing in U.S. media to a Vatican PR office, with a roster that is heavily weighted with Roman-Catholics. They include: Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, Bill Hemmer, Brian Kilmeade, Andrew Napolitano, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Kucinich, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Father Morris. Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of Fox News parent News Corp was himself inducted into the “Knights of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great” by Pope John Paul II. And if that isn’t enough, the current Senior Communications Adviser in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, Greg Burke, was previously the Fox News correspondent covering the Vatican, a position he held for ten years.

It is interesting to note how divergent these parishioners are from the philosophy of their spiritual leader, but it isn’t new. In February of 2012, Juan Cole compiled a list of doctrinal variances between the church and the conservative hypocrites. In March of 2010, Glenn Beck outright begged his disciples to “run as fast as you can” from any church that uses the words “social justice” or “economic justice.” In other words, renounce any parish that practices the teachings of Jesus.

A few weeks ago Sarah Palin said the nastiest thing she could think of about Pope Francis. She called him a liberal. A couple of days later she had second thoughts and apologized to the Pontiff, who probably couldn’t have cared less. I wonder if she is rethinking her apology now.

Where Are The Fox News Catholics Now That The Pope Has Endorsed Income Equality?

Posted by Mark NC on September 22, 2013 at 3:47 pm. 1 Comments :

Pope Francis has been breaking some stereotypes recently with commentaries that convey his infallible opinion that it isn’t the Vatican’s role to cast judgement on gays (“If a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge”), or become fixated on abortion or marriage equality (“it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”). He even said that non-Christians may be welcomed into Heaven. Now the Pope has extended his reach into a more accepting and progressive practice of faith by embracing the notion of equality with regard to economics.

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“The world has become an idolator of this god called money. […] It is the consequence of a world choice, of an economic system that has at its centre an idol which is called money. […] To defend this economic culture, a throwaway culture has been installed. We throw away grandparents, and we throw away young people. We have to say no to this throwaway culture. We want a just system that helps everyone.”

American conservatives have long wallowed in their self-righteous exploitation of what they deemed to be Catholic doctrine. They have attempted to apply their feigned moral superiority to political opponents, even calling for Catholic churches to deny communion to people like Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry. These views are commonly expressed on Fox News where their resident Catholic correspondent, Father Jonathan Morris, went so far as to denounce an entire faction of Americans simply because they voted for President Obama, saying “If anybody voted for Barack Obama because he is pro-abortion, that would certainly be an objective moral wrong.”

Fox News is the closest thing in media to a Vatican PR office, with a roster that is heavily weighted with Roman-Catholics. They include: Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, Bill Hemmer, Brian Kilmeade, Andrew Napolitano, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Kucinich, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Father Morris. Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of Fox News parent News Corp was himself inducted into the “Knights of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great” by Pope John Paul II. And if that isn’t enough, the current Senior Communications Adviser in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, Greg Burke, was previously the Fox News correspondent covering the Vatican, a position he held for ten years.

The Catholic-centric dominance of Fox’s programming surely contributes to the network’s bias with regard to issues concerning abortion, gay rights and marriage equality. The Fox ministry even attaches Catholic dogma to peripheral matters like military service and ObamaCare. No wonder they wage a “War on Christmas” at the end of every year.

However, despite their pious adherence to alleged church doctrine when issues important to conservatives are raised, they blindly stumble past any criticism of Catholic politicians or pundits who stray from the path on matters like war and capital punishment, which the church vehemently opposes.

Now the message from the Pope is one that calls for turning away from rank profiteering and instead attending to the needs of the poor and those struggling to provide for their families; the elderly who have given their lives to build this nation and are now being abandoned by right-wingers who want to cut Social Security and Medicare; the young who, through no fault of their own, are suffering and hungrey and being denied decent housing and education. In other words, the Pope is standing up for the 99% who have done the most to make America what it is, but who are being trampled by an upper-crusty class of elitists, politicians, and gullible Teabaggers.

For years Fox News has made it’s opinions known on following the teachings of the Catholic church that so dominates their ranks. Now will they continue to do so when their spiritual leader demands that they focus their efforts on behalf of the American people who need help the most, rather than the billionaires who won’t ease their greedy grasp on a few of their beloved dollars so that children won’t starve or their parents won’t be denied life-saving medical care?

Will the Pope’s admonition that it is not necessary to talk about abortion and Marriage equality all the time be heeded so that people do not become victims of the “throwaway culture?” Or will Fox persist in demonizing the poor as lazy moochers who are a burden to society? I’ll give you one guess.

NRA-Theism: Glenn Beck’s Jesus Was A Pistol-Packin’ Messiah

Posted by Mark NC on May 5, 2013 at 12:13 pm. 10 Comments :

The keynote speaker for this year’s NRA convention in Houston was a real crowd pleaser with experience riling up weak-minded right-wing sheeple. Glenn Beck’s sermon was delivered with his usual flair for phony emotion and theatrics. Here is the video if you have the stomach for it.

Beck set up his speech by fluffing the audience with praise for what awesome, charitable, courageous, sexy, patriots they all were. Of course, they lapped up this drooling approbation like thirsty puppies and rewarded Beck’s pandering with masturbatory applause. Beck gave the people exactly what they wanted and even titillated them with a teasing hint of a new project he would be announcing “in the coming days” with “major partners.”

The primary message of Beck’s program, however, was a more overarching appeal to the grand province of the Lord, with whom Beck frequently reminds folks that he is in close communication. Never mind that Beck’s interpretation of the divine is in stark contrast to that of most theologians. Take, for instance, how he inexplicably juxtaposes the mission of the NRA with that of the Prince of Peace by saying “Our right to keep and bear arms will not be infringed. We will follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ.” And while Beck never reveals where in scripture he learned that Jesus’ footsteps were fortified with firearms, he returned to the theme several times with pronouncements like this:

“Jesus was a man of God. He was a man of peace. He was a man of forgiveness. But make no mistake, Jesus Christ was also immoveable. The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And we will win by strapping on the full armor of God.”

Perhaps someone should remind Beck that Jesus ordered his apostles to lay down their weapons when confronted with Roman soldiers who came to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Or maybe they just dismiss it as that old “live by the sword, die by the sword” nonsense that their savior mumbled while under duress. Or, much like the 2nd Amendment, they just heed the half of the text that appeals to them and throw out irrelevancies like “die by the sword” and “well regulated militia.” And where he gets this business about the “armor of God” that he’s so anxious to strap on (an unfortunate phrasing), is anybody’s guess. The closest similar rhetoric would come from the Crusades. In the end, it belittles any notion of a divine power that certainly doesn’t need to rely on the defensive accoutrements of mortals.

Beck railed on interminably, punctuating his evangelical bluster with warnings of end-times alarmism. He insisted that we are in a “precarious situation” and that “the hour grows late.” He feverishly hammered into the heads of his assembled masses the apocalyptic angst that is the hallmark of his nightmarish doctrine.

“Our freedom is under attack. Our liberty, our way of life is being legislated out of existence. Our rights are being diminished by a ruling class of power of elites. They’re growing out of control. We have a government of radical revolutionaries actively working against the Constitution and the American people.”

And after that upchucking of fear and darkness, Beck was steadfast in his determination to fight the left’s tactics of fear and darkness – with love. Because, as we all know, love is best expressed behind the muzzle of an assault weapon that was acquired without any background check. Just ask the children of Sandy Hook, the students of Virginia Tech, the movie fans of Aurora, or even the church-goers of Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

Fox News Hypocrisy Raises Its Ugly Head At Church

Posted by Mark NC on April 1, 2013 at 2:42 pm. 8 Comments :

At some point you would think that the mind-control mavens at Fox News would stop and ask themselves if their overtly contradictory messages were going too far. You would, however, be wrong to have such a naive thought.

President Obama and his family spent Easter Sunday this year at their neighborhood St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. By most accounts it was a pleasant outing that celebrated the holiday in a conventional manner. So leave it to Fox News to abandon convention and find something nefarious with which to attack the President.

It seems that Rev. Luis Leon offended the Fox martinets of virtue by including in his sermon a message that just happens to comply with the church’s beliefs:

Leon: “I hear all the time the expression ‘the good old days’. Well, the good old days, we forget they have been good for some, but they weren’t good for everybody. You can’t go back, you can’t live in the past. It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling people back. For Blacks to be back in the back of the bus; for women to be back in the kitchen; for gays to be in the closet; and for immigrants to be on their side of the border.”

Standing up for the oppressed in society is something that many churches regard as obedience to the teachings of their Savior. But to Fox News it is an affront to their Teabaggery and they simply will not have it. Consequently, they set out to disparage Rev. Leon, his church, and even the President (who had nothing to do with the sermon). On Fox’s America Live, Megyn Kelly hosted a panel that deemed the affair a “Controversial Easter Sermon,” and criticized the Rev. Leon for “blasting conservative Christians.” Over at the lie-riddled Fox Nation, it was characterized as “Another Obama Pastor Problem,” a stale reference reaching back to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Oddly enough, Fox had no problem when a conservative doctor named Ben Carson took to the podium at the National Prayer Breakfast and abandoned the spiritual theme of the event to rattle off a right-wing diatribe about taxes and debt. To the contrary, Fox glorified him as a hero of liberty and began laying the groundwork for his presidential campaign, and/or canonization. Fox described him as “Stealing the Show,” while Fox Nation gushed “Amazing Conservative Speech Upstages Obama At Prayer Breakfast.”

The divergence in presentation of these two events is more than hypocritical. The comments by Dr. Carson were totally inappropriate at a public religious event that for decades was respected as a gathering of harmony where partisanship was set aside. Carson breached that tradition to foist his views on the audience and was exalted for it by Fox News and other conservative outlets.

On the other hand, Rev. Leon was speaking in his own church to his own congregation whom he knows well. The Episcopal Church is regarded as a comparatively liberal denomination that advocates for gay rights and has ordained women and gays as ministers. Leon’s sermon was in keeping with the values of his church and parishioners.

Nevertheless, Fox News chose to exploit this private service to advance their political agenda. And by complaining about the content of the sermon they are effectively conceding that Leon was correct in criticizing “the captains of the religious right [who] are always calling people back.”

Well, as Jesus told Mary “You can’t go back.” And as much as Tea-publicans may pray for it, African-Americans are not going back to the back of the bus; women are not going back to the kitchen; and gays are not going back into the closets. As for immigrants, if they were all to go back there would be no one left here but Native Americans – a scenario that some may regard as preferable.

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