It’s amazing to ponder that Bill Press was a longtime host on CNN and then on MSNBC. His latest ludicrous column (at the Chicago Tribune among others) is titled “Hatred in the name of God.”
Press, a former chairman of California’s Democratic Party, insisted that there’s little difference between Islamic terrorists and Christian people advocating for religious liberty against the gay agenda.
Today, Islamic extremists in the Middle East behead captives in the name of Mohammed. Today, Christian extremists in the United States deny service to gay and lesbian Americans in the name of Jesus, just like they once used the Bible to justify slavery and segregation.
Granted, murder's worse than discrimination, but otherwise there's no difference between the two camps. Islamic extremists who kill their victims are not true Muslims. Christian extremists who discriminate against anybody for any reason are not true Christians. They both masquerade their hatred under the guise of religion.
This is now another Koch Brothers conspiracy. "Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that there are nearly 100 similar bills pending in red states around the country: all little more than photocopies of draft bills circulated by the Koch Brothers-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)."
Like many liberals, Press favors the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as signed by Bill Clinton and backed by Chuck Schumer – when it was “specifically aimed at preventing government agencies from encroaching on sacred Native American grounds or banning the use of peyote in Native American religious rites.” But if it’s about the Bible, and not drug use, not so much:
What is most odious about sponsors of this flood of phony "religious freedom" laws are attempts to justify their homophobia as a faith-based tenet of Christianity. Nonsense! They're not true Christians. They're phony Christians and false prophets. They don't know their Bible, either. We don't know what Jesus thought about homosexuality, since he says not one word about it in the entire New Testament. But we do know he taught us to love our neighbor, and not hate him or her. For any reason.
In their eagerness to appeal to religious conservatives, it was not surprising to see presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry and Marco Rubio rush to defend the Indiana law. What was surprising was the strong, negative response from the business community. Many Indiana business owners condemned the law. So did big tech firms Apple, Angie's List, and Salesforce. Even NASCAR weighed in against it. To me, that says it all. When you're too extreme for NASCAR, you're too extreme.
Ironically, Press's radio show now airs on some cable and satellite system on a leftist channel named Free Speech TV. When you extreme emough for Free Speech TV, you're awfully extreme.
