Pope Emeritus Benedict Joins Fox News: ‘Pope Culture’ To Debut In The Fall

Posted by Mark NC on April 1, 2013 at 3:36 am. 6 Comments :

For the first time in 600 years there is a living former Pope. However, Pope Emeritus Benedict does not plan to retire quietly to the Vatican’s back porch and tend to gardening and meditation. He has other plans and they are leaking out along with a wisp of white smoke from the chimney atop 1211 Avenue of the Americas.

Fox News insiders report that a deal has been reached to bring Benedict to the Fox News family with a new program to air on Sunday mornings. Tentatively titled “Pope Culture,” sources say that it will premiere this fall and is slated to be a forum for many of the values issues that dominate the dialogue in the media and at dinner tables across America.

Discussions to draft the papal free agent began shortly after the selection of Pope Francis, Benedict’s successor. Those meetings were helped along by some influential Vatican insiders with media connections. Greg Burke, the current Senior Communications Adviser in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, was previously the Fox News correspondent covering the Vatican, a position he held for ten years. Burke, a member of the ultra-conservative Catholic prelate Opus Dei, left Fox in the summer of 2012 to head up the Vatican’s PR efforts to quell the uproar over a series of embarrassing scandals.

Burke was instrumental in introducing Benedict to Fox CEO Roger Ailes who was immediately intrigued by the prospect of signing a popular figure in the world of religion with international name recognition. Ailes was said to be looking for a new hot property to bolster a stale line-up that was recently roiled by controversy and incompetence. This year he had to jettison or bench familiar Fox faces like Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, and Dick Morris, due to their humiliating failures as commentators and analysts. Since God has anointed Benedict as infallible, Ailes can relax and won’t have to worry about the sort of mistakes that caused his network to suffer historic declines in ratings and credibility.

Sources inside Fox, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the matter, said that contract negotiations included some unique concessions. The show would not be modeled after the other Sunday news programs that feature sometimes raucous debates. Benedict insisted that his program be a more deliberative hour interspersed with inspirational segments and profiles of charitable organizations and volunteer opportunities. The theme of promoting “service” was said to have been brought up repeatedly by Benedict’s representatives. They briefly encountered some resistance at Fox by hardliners who regard such talk as coddling freeloaders who refuse to accept personal responsibility. In the end, Benedict prevailed by agreeing that the type of service that he advocated was of the private variety and not that provided by bloated government agencies. That was enough to win over the Fox holdouts.

Benedict further requested and received assurances that he would have editorial control and would not be subject to either fairness or balance with regard to his topics or guests, a demand Ailes had no problem with since he never took that seriously anyway. There is also a provision for Fox to build a TV studio at Benedict’s residence which, sources say, will be accomplished on the cheap by repossessing the one they built for Sarah Palin at her home in Wasilla, Alaska. As of this writing there is no confirmation of rumors regarding the brown M&Ms.

When Benedict arrives at Fox in the fall he will be joining a roster already heavily weighted with Roman-Catholics, including: Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, Bill Hemmer, Brian Kilmeade, Andrew Napolitano, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Kucinich, and the in-house priest, Father Jonathan 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.

So Benedict ought to feel right at home in the midst of a College of (Media) Cardinals. His prior experience as spokesman for a vast assembly of true believers is the ideal preparation for a career as a Fox minister. Fox viewers exhibit a fierce loyalty that is consistent with the behavior of religious devotees and cults. They voluntarily separate themselves from the heresy of other news sources that might infect their pious souls. They make a point of disassociating with apostates and blasphemers who might divert them from the true path. Cult leaders demand strict obedience, and that is precisely what Fox News gets from their disciples. They even have an adjunct site, Fox Nation [see Fox Nation vs. Reality], that implores its adherents to “Join Us” with the promise that they will never be alone – a promise that is familiar to churchgoers.

The pairing of Fox and Benedict appears to be almost preordained. They have striking similarities in their principles and agendas. And at the root of their shared mission is the fact that they are both trying to sell stories on faith to ill-informed people who are motivated by fear. This relationship has the potential to be beneficial for everyone involved and is being greeted with unanimous approval from the Fox hierarchy. Oh Happy Day.

The Anti-Constitutional, Christo-cratic Case Against Marriage Equality

Posted by Mark NC on March 30, 2013 at 9:55 am. 4 Comments :

With the Supreme Court’s deliberations on a pair of marriage equality cases last week, more and more right-wing “Christo-crats” are affirming their faith-based opposition to the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. And increasingly, those affirmations are taking the form of inadvertent admissions that marriage is not within the purview of the state to decide. It is constitutionally impermissible for courts to rule for or against specific religious dogma.

Nevertheless, That is exactly what the martinets of virtue on the right are advocating. For example, former CNN contributor Dana Loesch wrote an editorial that appeared on both RedState and the lie-riddled Fox Nation that sought to refute the notion that marriage equality is a conservative position. She insists that it is not, and that…

“Marriage is a covenant between a man, woman, and God before God on His terms. It is a religious civil liberty, not a right granted by government. […] In suing over “marriage” itself one is demanding that God change His definition of the union between a man and a woman.”

Loesch does not bother to reveal where in God’s Dictionary the definition of marriage occurs, nor does she reveal where one can pick up a copy of God’s Dictionary. If she is referencing passages in the Bible, then she is conveniently excluding from God’s definition those pious Biblical figures who maintained multiple (sometimes hundreds of) wives. Likewise she leaves out God’s mandate that rapists be forced to marry their victims. But more to the point, she is admitting that marriage is a construct of religion and, therefore, it is unconstitutional for the state to have a hand in it – except, in her view, so far as Christian-approved nuptials are concerned.

That same doctrine was addressed by Breitbart’s John Nolte in a column accusing the media of trying to destroy religion. That’s the same media that just completed endless hours of blanket coverage of the selection of a new Pope; the same media whose Christmas specials preempt everything else on the air. Nolte argues that recognition of the right for same-sex couples to marry would improperly impose on the right to religious freedom for Christians who regard such behavior as sinful. But if the religious freedom of Christians is violated every time something they regard as a sin is allowed under the law, that would make premarital sex unconstitutional [not to mention lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. By that measure, the Constitution would require the dissolution of Congress] Nolte says that he is in favor of civil unions, but…

“I oppose same-sex marriage because marriage is a sacrament, and there is a big difference between asking one to be tolerant, and demanding one condone.”

Once again we have an evangelical conservative admitting that his opposition is based on spiritual grounds. And once again, that would make it an invalid argument so far as the Constitution is concerned. They simply cannot assert that something is subject to legal prohibition because it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Were that the case, Jews could seek a Supreme Court judgment mandating that all food in America be produced in accordance with the laws of Kosher. What’s more, no one is demanding that any particular behavior be condoned, merely that it not be discriminated against. That’s a distinction that conservatives have trouble comprehending, or perhaps they just enjoy being bigots.

RedState’s Erick Erickson chimed in with an article asserting that “‘Gay Marriage’ and Religious Freedom Are Not Compatible.” He hinges his argument on the Bible passage, Matthew 19:4-6, wherein Christ says…

“…He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

Erickson acknowledges that in this passage Christ is answering a question about whether it is permissible to divorce one’s wife. It was not a question about who is allowed to marry. But he dismisses that fact and focuses only on what he interprets as a definition of marriage, rather than as a direct response to a specific question. Likewise, he dismisses the part about divorce being against God’s law. This is an example of the convenient piety of so many sanctimonious religious zealots that permits them to pick and chose which principles they will honor. If Erickson wants to make a federal case of the definition of marriage as expressed by Matthew 19:4-6, then he should be consistent and call for a constitutional prohibition of divorce. Instead he impugns the sincerity of his ideological foes by calling them “a bunch of progressive Christians who have no use for the Bible,” even though he’s the one twisting it to fit his political prejudices.

Like Loesch and Nolte, Erickson is admitting that he sees gay marriage as “a legal encroachment of God’s intent.” Therefore, without realizing it, he is admitting that it is not a valid argument in a nation whose Constitution says that it “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Even Bill O’Reilly has noticed that the anti-marriage equality crowd is obsessed with religious justifications, rather than sound legal arguments. He praises gay advocates for saying that…

“‘We’re Americans. We just want to be treated like everybody else.’ That’s a compelling argument, and to deny that, you have got to have a very strong argument on the other side. The argument on the other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible.”

Indeed, Bible thumping is not generally viewed in legal circles as a basis for constitutional findings. Yet, as the issue winds through the maze of judicial debate, the Tea-vangelical’s arguments continue to devolve into nothing but sanctimonious sermonizing. It is evermore apparent that their bigotry has no justification under America’s law, so they fall back on God’s law and attempt to ram their beliefs down the nation’s throat. They clearly have no respect for the Constitution or the freedom it guarantees for religious liberty nor, of course, for the equal protection of the law that forbids the state from discriminating against same-sex couples who seek to marry.

Fox News Culture War: Obama’s Gay Marriage Endorsement Like Another 9/11

Posted by Mark NC on May 14, 2012 at 11:34 am. 2 Comments :

Leave it to Fox News to escalate every political discussion to a nuclear holocaust. In the wake of President Obama’s personal support for gay marriage, Fox, and the rest of the Right-Wing Noise Machine, has declared yet another “war.”

And if it’s not enough that Fox characterizes a position with which the majority of the country concurs as hostile, they up the ante by posting an item on their Fox Nation site that compares this position to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The Fox Nationalists quote controversial right-wing pastor Dwight McKissic, who has a history of virulently anti-gay rhetoric. He has said that the Anti-Christ will be gay and that Hurricane Katrina was God’s wrath on the “sinners” of New Orleans. He also says that the gay rights movement was inspired “from the pit of hell itself.” Now he says of Obama’s remarks that…

“The moral impact of this day and decision is equal to the military impact of AL-Queda when they attacked the Twin Towers on 911.”

Of course. It’s exactly the same thing. Who could deny the similarities between extremist religious zealots murdering thousands of innocent people, and the President’s expression of support for unconditional love. If there is any similarity it is between the Muslim radicals who hate homosexuality as much as Christian radicals do.

Fox, for its part, is demonstrating their innate bigotry by providing a national platform for McKissic’s repugnant views. They are giving a megaphone to a known homophobe and professional hate monger. And nowhere in their reporting do they elaborate on the character of McKissic. They do, however, go out of their way to note that McKissic is black, a fact that has no bearing on the subject other than as an attempt to create a wedge between the African-American community and the President.

The Fox faction is again demonstrating their desperation to smear the President because they have no substantive case to make for their own candidate, Mitt Romney. Expect to see more of this culture war propaganda as the campaign progresses. It’s the only thing that Fox and their GOP enablers have to talk about.

Rick Santorum And The Anti-Intellectual, Theocratic Legacy Of The GOP

Posted by Mark NC on February 26, 2012 at 1:43 pm. 8 Comments :

The Republican Party has been advocating ignorance for decades. They Reject the 98% of scientists who affirm that climate change is real and the result of human activity. They scoff at evolution in favor of Biblical affirmations that put the age of the Earth at only 6,000 years. They belittle Harvard graduates as elitists and revere candidates they think would make good beer drinking companions.

Now Rick Santorum, the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, has said aloud what has only been alluded to in the past. At a forum for the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, Santorum said…

“President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob!”

Really. How elitist of Obama to suggest that all Americans have access to the same opportunities to improve themselves personally and professionally. What a pompous, exclusionary attitude. Santorum continued saying…

“There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.”

Exactly. Heaven forbid that kids should be encouraged to learn things taught by college professors when all they are capable of is manual labor and assembly line work. Santorum is squarely opposed to kids having higher aspirations. He castigates Obama for wanting to remake kids in the image of someone who began poor, from a broken home, and rose to become president of the United States. But Santorum prefers the image of kids who skip school, get a job, and never achieve anything greater than their parents did. Never mind the fact that most parents sacrifice selflessly to give their kids the opportunity to reach their highest potential.

In Santorum’s world ignorance is the goal. It would have to be in order to persuade people to vote for him. And his followers are fully on board with this. They applauded enthusiastically at his “snob” comment. But this is a relatively recent position for Santorum. In is last campaign for senate, his web site told a different story:

“In addition to Rick’s support of ensuring that primary and secondary schools in Pennsylvania are equipped for success, he is equally committed to ensuring the {sic) every Pennsylvanian has access to higher education.”

Critics will surely jump on that reference as evidence of Santorum’s hypocrisy. But not so fast. He was only in favor of “every Pennsylvanian” having access to higher education, not every American. Screw the Kansans and the Carolinians. Obama has the temerity to favor people from Arizona to Maine earning college degrees. That is unconscionable, but it’s OK for PA.

This weekend also saw Santorum describing the parts of the Constitution that make him vomit.

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country… to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up.”

Of course, I don’t know of anyone who says that people of faith should have no role in the public square. They can and do in great numbers. However, having “involvement in the operation of the state” is another thing entirely. It’s called theocracy, and it’s what you get when there is no separation of church and state.

The combination of viewing education as a character flaw and the Bible as an addendum to the Constitution is what defines the modern Republican/Tea Party. But it is not what this country is based on and it is not the path to peace and prosperity. And when discourse devolves to the point that the Constitution makes candidates wretch and advocating greater access to a college education makes you a snob, you know that a line of reason has been crossed.

Glenn Beck: We Are All Catholics Now – Except For Muslims

Posted by Mark NC on February 20, 2012 at 7:38 pm. 2 Comments :

Evanga-Pundit Glenn Beck is once again sermonizing on religious freedom as he interprets it. By his account any church that engages in any activity, even those that have nothing to do with the practice of their faith, deserve the protection of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

That, of course, is absurd. If a church buys a chain of Jack-in-the-Boxes, they are not permitted to force their employees and patrons to adhere to their spiritual doctrine. The freedom that religion is granted under law is specifically applicable to the practice of the religion, not every other enterprise they may engage in. There are innumerable examples of limitations on the absolutist theory of religious freedom. For instance, the use of peyote by some Native Americans is not legal in most of the country, despite it being a legitimate and long-standing religious practice. And who would argue that human or animal sacrifice ought to be a protected activity?

However, when the Catholic church complains that they have to live by the same rules as the rest of society, even when they leave their churches to operate hospitals or other non-religious businesses, folks like Beck insist that their rights are being violated. And yesterday, in the Washington Post, Beck made that exact argument. It really is too bad that the Post sullied themselves by giving Beck that platform for his crackpottery.

So Beck has proclaimed that “We are all Catholics now.” No, actually, we are not. And Beck’s assertion that “Americans are offended by the ruling from the White House” fails to note that most Americans agree with the President’s position – even most Catholics. But that doesn’t stop Beck from spewing phony bravado like this:

“[W[hen the state comes against the Catholics, or the Jews, or the Muslims, or the Pentecostals, or the Mormons or those of any other faith – exotic or familiar – we must all stand up as one: We are all Catholics now. “

That’s funny. I don’t remember Beck or his ilk standing up as one with the Muslims who wanted to build a community center in lower Manhattan. While he was slow to condemn the project, and made some noises about respecting their rights at the outset of the controversy, he eventually found cause to oppose it based on spurious and unproven allegations about the Imam who was spearheading it. In other words, Beck came around to the same position that his rightist compatriots had already assumed. Here’s what Beck had to say about it:

“[T]here are some highly questionable statements surrounding this man that should be looked into before he is allowed to build a mosque a block away from Ground Zero or for that matter, in Kansas.”

That’s Beck’s version of religious freedom, wherein it is perfectly acceptable to trample the rights of religions you find distasteful as a result of your own bigotry. I’m sure he would also want to investigate the backgrounds of every Catholic or Mormon who proposes building a place to gather and worship. I can’t wait to hear Beck challenge the building permits for a new YMCA in his neighborhood.

The New And Improved War On Religion: Catholic Hypocrisy In The Media

Posted by Mark NC on February 16, 2012 at 2:00 pm. 1 Comments :

The manufactured controversy over President Obama’s initiative to make employer-provided contraceptive coverage available to all women, regardless of where they work, has been morphed into a phony debate on religious freedom. OK, if it’s a religious debate they want, then bring it on.

Juan Cole has published a brilliant analysis on Alternet enumerating the 10 Catholic Teachings Conservatives Reject While Obsessing About Birth Control.

1. Pope John Paul II was against anyone going to war against Iraq

2.The Conference of Catholic Bishops requires that health care be provided to all Americans.

3. The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty for criminals in almost all situations.

4. The US Conference of Bishops has urged that the federal minimum wage be increased, for the working poor.

5. The bishops want welfare for all needy families, saying “We reiterate our call for a minimum national welfare benefit that will permit children and their parents to live in dignity. A decent society will not balance its budget on the backs of poor children.”

6. The US bishops say that “the basic rights of workers must be respected–the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions…”.

7. Catholic bishops demand the withdrawal of Israel from Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.

8. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops ripped into Arizona’s law on treatment of immigrants, Cardinal Roger Mahony characterized Arizona’s S.B. 1070 as “the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law.”

9. The Bishops have urged that illegal immigrants not be treated as criminals and that their contribution to this country be recognized.

10. The US Conference of Bishops has denounced, as has the Pope, the Bush idea of ‘preventive war’, and has come out against an attack on Iran in the absence of a real and present threat of an Iranian assault on the US.

Cole goes into more detail on each item and provides examples of legal cases where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against select religious activities. For instance, both polygamy and peyote (used in religious rituals) are prohibited despite the Constitution’s enunciation of freedom of religion. So if the Catholic puritans who insist that an insurance company can’t offer legal medicine to patients on the basis that it is against their faith, then they had better switch their positions on all of the issues above as well.

The media needs to be honest about the framework of this debate. It is not about freedom of religion. Catholics are not encumbered in way from engaging in their chosen form of worship. But if they leave their churches to participate in the broader society, whether by opening hospitals or McDonalds franchises, they have to play by the same rules as everyone else. A church that preaches racial segregation can say whatever they want to their parishioners, but they can’t open a hotel and refuse to hire African-Americans or decline to admit them as guests. And any church-owned business that employs and serves the general public in a non-religious capacity cannot discriminate on the basis of their personal beliefs.

Now It’s A Holy War: The Fox Nation Launches A Crusade

Posted by Mark NC on February 3, 2012 at 1:41 pm. 7 Comments :

Notice a pattern here:

Fox News has been at war against Democrats and liberals since its inception. The have declared wars on Christmas, environmentalism, community organizers, students, seniors, the poor, and on and on. The election season has seen a ramping up of their instigation of class war.

None of that has managed to pick up support from the American people who are the real targets of these invented wars. The class war, in particular, has been a resounding failure for Fox because the country has consistently sided with the 99% over the GOP (Greedy One Percent).

So the Fox Nationalists are upping the ante by sending their troops on a mission to invade the Kingdom of Heaven. This is no longer a battle of mortals, but a celestial conflagration that they are blaming on President Obama.

Once again, the rightist crusaders are demonstrating their rank hypocrisy by lambasting the President for daring to quote scripture. Conservatives have built a cottage industry of forcing their religious beliefs into the political arena. They demand that Christian dogma be codified into law. They insist that Christian fables be taught as if they were historically affirmed. They falsely assert that the nation’s founders were devout Christians who intended their faith to direct the course of the country. They complain bitterly that Christians are the only group that are discriminated against. They are, to be succinct, delusional.

So it’s onward Republican soldiers, and marching lockstep with them are the Murdoch Militia, valiantly defending America from DemonCrats and spreading their message of an imminent Armageddon. And all because they can’t abide the fact that a Democratic President shares their faith.

Fox News Is SHOCKED That Obama Has Christian Values

Posted by Mark NC on February 2, 2012 at 11:32 am. 4 Comments :

Seriously, Fox News? Are you seriously expressing disdain for President Obama’s remarks at the annual National Prayer Breakfast about how his faith has helped form his policy opinions?

The arch-conservative, fundamentalists in America have spent decades insisting that America is a Christian nation and that the country must submit to their spiritual dogma. They have attempted to, and in many cases succeeded in, passing bills that legislatively adopt their religious principles, from abortion to creationism. And Fox Pews…I mean News has adopted the crusade of the religious right as their own.

The one Christian principle that is almost always left out of the fundamentalist agenda is the one that preaches compassion for the poor and Jesus’ admonition that “whatever you do (do not do) for the least of these you do (do not do) for me.” Now when the President articulates his principles of Christian faith at a prayer breakfast he is criticized for it with a distinct implication that it was somehow inappropriate.

OK, fine. Let’s all agree that injecting religion into public policy is inadvisable and promise to refrain from doing it. But that has to apply to all sides. The Christian Taliban can no longer try to shove its philosophy down the throats of their fellow citizens. There will be no more sermonizing on God’s alleged will. No more phony wars on Christmas. No more prayers to open congressional hearings. And if the right will not agree to these terms, then they have to shut up when the President makes barely religious comments like this:

“When I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody. But I also do it because I know far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years. And I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.”

[…] “I actually think that is going to make economic sense, but for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.'”

Unfortunately, the Evangelicans will never surrender their arrogant superiority long enough to permit America to have true freedom of religion. And they will likewise refuse to refrain from castigating Democrats when they exercise their religious liberties. That’s just the nature of the sanctimonious hypocrisy embraced by the practitioners of religious tyranny.

Religious Extremists Are Indoctrinating Our Children

Posted by Mark NC on January 16, 2012 at 11:52 am. 1 Comments :

Over the weekend there was a horrifying display of propaganda broadcast into the homes of unsuspecting football fans. It was disguised as an advertisement and brazenly exploited young children in pursuit of an evil plot to brainwash America with the demonic dogma of a foreign, middle-eastern religious cult. Just watch it…

Ghastly, isn’t it? It was broadcast during the NFL Playoff game between the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots. It must have so angered God that he declined to bless Broncos QuarterPastor Tim Tebow with another divine victory. And take a look at the response from the righteous folks at Fox Nation:

Oh…Wait a minute. Those were actually comments posted in response to a video produced by MoveOn.org in support of the Contract for the American Dream. Here is that video that inspired the Fox Nationalists to slander the MoveOn kids as Nazis.

Personally, I think all these kids are just too darned cute to be real and must be in a pact with Satan. Nevertheless, surely it must be just as bad when a religious organization employs kids to market their spiritual philosophy as it is when another organization does so to advance social and economic justice. No doubt the Fox Nationalists will shortly post an article decrying a “New Low: Focus on the Family Indoctrinating Children,” just as they did when MoveOn released their video.

Under God Or Under Government? GOP Senator Bullies TV Network

Posted by Mark NC on June 23, 2011 at 10:05 am. 12 Comments :

Talk about your big government. Republican Senator Dan Coats of Indiana is applying strong-arm tactics to intimidate a television network for not being sufficiently deferential to God.

The controversy stems from an NBC Sports opening sequence to the U.S. Open Golf Championship. The segment, intended to be a moment of patriotism, included parts of the Pledge of Allegiance. As is routine with television promos, editing of the segment was performed due to time constraints. As a result the words “under God” were omitted from the segment.

Bear in mind that this was not a religious program. It was not a news program. It was not an educational program. It was not a socially significant drama or even a “very special episode” of an otherwise vapid sitcom. This was a short slice of promotional tripe introducing a sporting event. Nevertheless, the martinets of virtue on the right were aghast at this affront to their Lord.

The outrage exhibited by the religious zealots is not really a matter of much concern. They are entitled to express their opinions and advance their view of how religious issues are presented in the media. The problem here is that now a United States Senator has injected himself, and consequently the weight of the government, into this debate in a wholly inappropriate and offensive manner.

Senator Coats, in a flurry of self-righteous indignation, has dashed off a letter to the president and CEO of NBC, Stephen Burke. The tone of the letter is repugnant and intimidating, as Coats seeks to pressure the network into compliance with his religious views. Coats writes…

“I am writing to express my serious concern, and the concerns of the Hoosiers I represent, regarding NBC’s decision to air an edited version of the national Pledge of Allegiance not once but twice during the June 19, 2011 broadcast of the U.S. Open golf tournament. In the opening of this broadcast, NBC aired video showing schoolchildren reciting the Pledge, but omitted the words ‘under God, indivisible’ during the segment. Moments later, NBC again aired an edited version of the Pledge, this time omitting the words ‘one nation, under God, indivisible.'”
[…]
“I am disturbed with NBC’s decision to modify the Pledge for this broadcast. I understand that NBC acknowledged its error at a later point in Sunday’s broadcast, and has since stated that this action was a ‘bad decision’ made by a small group of individuals. Nonetheless, I remain concerned that such a decision to selectively edit the Pledge could be made in the first place. As a result, I would like to request that NBC provide me with a full written account of its decision-making process in this matter, including an explanation of why these specific words were omitted, and what actions NBC intends to take to prevent such inappropriate edits from occurring in the future.”

It’s bad enough that NBC was cowed into making an unnecessary apology, but under what authority is Coats requesting that NBC be prevailed upon to provide him with a written account of their decision-making process? What business is it of his, or the U.S. government, how a private business decides to edit a program for entertainment purposes? Perhaps he would also like an explanation for why “American Idol” is elevating secular pop singers to deity status? Has he not heard the commandment that “you shall not make for yourself an idol?” Maybe he would like to force CBS to develop a new show called “Creationism” to counter the blasphemous effects of “The Big Bang Theory?”

And where does Coats get off demanding that NBC tell him what actions they intend to take to “prevent such inappropriate edits from occurring in the future?” Who is he to decide that the edits were inappropriate? Isn’t that the job of the producers, writers, and marketers of the private enterprise making the program? Is Coats implying that there is some government imposed prohibition to airing this, or some similar segment, in the future?

This is government intrusion on media of the most heinous sort. It is trampling on the feet of the First Amendment. This over-reach should be denounced by everyone from religious freedom advocates to Tea Party proponents of “getting government off our backs.” (Although I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the Tea Party to demonstrate their moral consistency).

To see a person in a position of power abusing it like this is a chilling spectacle. Sen. Coates needs to study the Constitution and refrain from imposing his religious beliefs on private enterprise. The Pledge of Allegiance is not mandated by law to be recited on any television program and there is no legal stipulation that it never be edited – Thank God!

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