Anti-Religious Bias

Update/correction (30 March 2012, 16:12 p.m. EDT): Brewer is no longer employed with MSNBC. I was going off of outdated information on her Facebook fan page. The post below is corrected accordingly.

"A compelling, alarming case against the GOP and its 'War on Women.' Lest you think it can't happen here, just ask Iranian women how conservative, religious fanatics ripped their rights away." [see screen capture below page break; h/t @mattjmobile]

That's how former MSNBC host Contessa Brewer introduced her Facebook fans to a March 25 New York magazine piece by Frank Rich entitled "Stag Party: The GOP’s woman problem is that it has a serious problem with women."

Wherever devout Christian quarterback Tim Tebow goes, he is dogged by the hatred of those who cannot stand him or his faith. Tebow was traded from the Denver Broncos to the New York Jets amid much media fanfare, and some sportswriters naturally used the occasion to engage in personal attacks on Tebow, his religion, and his fans.

MSNBC invited Nation sports editor Dave Zirin to give his opinion on Tebow’s move to New York. Zirin bizarrely argued that “there are a lot of LGBT people that live in New York City who are also football fans”and that “the new, possibly, starting quarterback for the New York Jets wants them to move backwards 30 or 40 years.”(The Denver Broncos refused to participate in anti-heterosexual Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better Project” when Tebow was still on the Broncos, drawing the ire of the gay community and the left-wing media.)

“GCB” managed to dial down its cheap dialogue in March 25’s episode, but only barely. A “good” day for the “Good Christian” show still fired up to 20 shots on Christians along with attacks on Texans, and all of them were laden with malice and contempt.

The entire show lives up to its newest episode’s name, “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,” and per usual there is a lot of sex and Bible-bashing in the fold.

As NewsBusters reported last Friday, the producers of the hit show American Idol warned contestant Colton Dixon to tone down his overtly Christian references if he wanted to win the competition.

Dixon clearly didn't heed their advice, for after his incredible performance of Billy Joel's "Piano Man" Wednesday, he told host Ryan Seacrest, "I’ve been praying before this whole thing because tonight was a big moment for me, and I was just collecting myself and saying, 'God, use me.' I want Him to shine through first and foremost." (Video follows with commentary.)

The media are falling over themselves to relay a salacious report that the Catholic Church in the Netherlands may have surgically castrated "as many as 10 young men" over a half a century ago, in the 1950's.

Perpetual Catholic bashers such as the New York Times, NPR, and the Boston Globe are having a field day trumpeting the tale.

The message from these outlets is clear: "The Catholic Church is bad, bad, bad. The news gets worse every day!"

A closer examination of the facts, however, reveals that there is a lot more to this story than meets the eye.

If “Love is Patient” then why does “GCB” feel the need to devote an entire episode solely to sexual self-gratification in marriage?

On March 18, the “Good Christian” show spent 40 minutes focusing on the sexual frustrations of married couples and touting remedies such as “googling the Holy Spirit and horny” and heading to the Bible bookstore to buy “guides to spicy Scripture,” and no that last one is not referring to a cookbook.

The producers of the hit show American Idol apparently told one of its top contestants to tone down his overtly Christian references if he wants to win the competition.

According to Today.com, Colton Dixon doesn't care and "plans to continue using the show and social media to spread his message of faith":

Neil Munro of the Daily Caller reports on a double standard on religious-bashing ads in the New York Times involving Pamela Geller (pictured), the activist against radical Islam whose "venomous" rhetoric the Times finds offensive, especially after her involvement in the opposition to building a mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero.

Andrea Mitchell is no newbie to journalism. In fact, in 2010, she was given the Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism by the National Press Foundation. She's in good company with Brit Hume and the late Tim Russert among previous recipients of the award. But alas, the MSNBC anchor displayed no "excellence in journalism" with her brief, softball interview today with Robin Morgan of the liberal Women's Media Center.

Mitchell brought Morgan on to discuss her group's petition drive to request the FCC to ban Rush Limbaugh from the airwaves. The WMC's argument is that Limbaugh engages in "hate speech" which is not in the "public interest" and hence cause to push him off the air. Below the page break I've listed in bullet points the questions Mitchell posed to Morgan, which, as you can see, are all softballs meant to advance Morgan's talking points:

As NewsBusters reported, HBO's Bill Maher on Friday disgracefully claimed Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum homeschools his children to keep them locked up in his "Christian madrassa" where they won't be exposed to knowledge and reason.

On Fox New's Hannity Monday, the former Pennsylvania Senator struck back at the vulgar comedian saying, "My 12-year-old will out-reason Bill Maher" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

“Hell Hath No Fury,” the second episode in ABC’s unholy mess “GCB,” was even worse than the pilot. Despite the vain and meager PR attempts by its Jesus-touting stars, the show's true agenda of degrading Christianity, conservatives, and Texans shines as bright as the light of Heaven with a total of 72 attacks on the Christian faith in a mere two episodes.

“GCB’s” sin-filled debut left audiences and advertisers questioning Disney-owned ABC’s credibility. Because of the show’s blatant assault on a particular audience, Kraft pulled its Philadelphia Cream Cheese ad  from the programming faster than Kristen Chenoweth could don one of her hideous “Southern” costumes.

Bill Maher on Friday attacked Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Christians, and anyone that homeschools their children.

In his final New Rule on HBO's Real Time, Maher said, "Rick Santorum homeschools his children because he does not want them eating [from the Tree of Knowledge]. He wants them locked up in the Christian madrassa that is the family living room not out in public where they could be infected by the virus of reason" (video follows with transcript and commentary, vulgarity warning):

The  "war on women" is more than a political fight waged in the civil arena. It's a spiritual conflict with patriarchal pulpits raining down oppression onto the women in the pews, Washington Post religion reporter Lisa Miller complains in an "On Faith" item posted today, "International Women's Day":

On February 29, The Washington Post created a scandal for the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington by dramatizing the denial of communion to lesbian activist Barbara Johnson at her mother’s funeral. Reporter Michelle Boorstein painted an emotional picture of a Catholic daughter being publicly shamed by a priest at her lowest moment.

But new details keep ruining the Post’s report. Thomas Peters at Catholic Vote today reveals that Johnson has publicly declared she is a Buddhist, and not a Catholic! The Post is going to need to fill the Corrections box.

Far be it for the Washington Post to relegate its attacks on orthodox Christian faith and conservative religious practice to its "On Faith" feature. There's room enough for propping up liberal theology in book reviews as well, as Post book editor Ron Charles proved again in his "Book World" review of Elaine Pagels's new book "Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation."

Charles, who previously praised a novel that depicted Jesus as a "scoundrel" as a "brisk and bracing story of profound implications" and hailed another author who tagged Jesus as "bully of the world," was predictably pleased with Pagels's latest treatise, insisting that the liberal religion professor is not out to undermine the Bible, even though her central thesis does precisely that (emphasis mine):

Washington Post religion columnist Lisa Miller has one child, and she seems quite smug about it. She thanks God “I live in a time and place where I can get up every morning and go to work, and with the money I earn help feed and educate my child.” But in her Saturday column, the slams the Republican candidates for their “smug fecundity,” that they turned their women into retrograde doormats who make babies.

“There’s nothing wrong with big families, of course,” she says fruitlessly before saying there actually is. “But the smug fecundity of the Republican field this primary season has me worried. Their family photos, with members of their respective broods spilling out to the margins, seem to convey a subliminal message that goes far beyond a father’s pride in being able to field his own basketball team. What the Republican front-runners seem to be saying is this: We are like the biblical patriarchs. As conservative religious believers, we take seriously the biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply.”

"The American Conservative Union just came out" with their latest congressional scorecard and what do you know, retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) has "the lowest lifetime conservative record [48.59, just left of center] of any Republican. In Diane Sawyer's book, that makes her the principled voice of reason," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Sean Hannity on last night's "Media Mash" segment on Hannity.

The liberal media, of course, have been using the left-leaning senator's departure from the Senate as a club to rebuke the Republican Party as in danger of losing its appeal to moderates and becoming a far-right political party with limited appeal. Also discussed on the popular media bias segment was how the media are skewing their coverage of Rick Santorum to present him as obsessed with social issues and bordering on foisting a "Christian" brand of "Sharia law." [video follows page break]

Serving as the arm of MSNBC which actually has a significant audience, Thursday’s NBC Nightly News promoted a left-wing effort to impugn and silence Rush Limbaugh. “A firestorm of outrage from women after a crude tirade from Rush Limbaugh and as the battle over birth control takes another turn,” anchor Brian Williams ominously teased his newscast.

Picking up a crusade pushed all day by MSNBC, Williams warned “some may find some of the comments in this next story offensive.” He claimed “there is a growing firestorm over comments made by Rush Limbaugh,” about a woman, Sandra Fluke, who testified in favor of forcing her Catholic college to pay for her contraception, and so “a lot of women are expressing their outrage.”

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller said on MSNBC's Morning Joe, "Sometimes [Rick] Santorum sounds like he's creeping up on a Christian version of Sharia law."

In response to this nonsense, the Republican presidential candidate told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt later that day, "This is the intolerance of the Left. If you have religious beliefs that they don’t believe in, then they marginalize you" (video follows with partial transcript):

As Fox News is reporting, MRC president Brent Bozell organized a group of socially conservative leaders to demand that Huffington Post publisher Arianna Huffington apologize for allowing a Catholic-bashing, Santorum-bashing column to be published on her website that begins: "Many of you will be shocked to learn what our possible future president believes, who he answers to, the bloody jihads his so-called church has carried on for centuries, and its current role as the tactical arm of the North American Man-Boy Love Association."

Writer Larry Doyle added, "Unlike Christians, Santorum and his fellow Roman Catholics participate in a barbaric ritual dating back two millennia, a 'mass' in which a black-robed cleric casts a spell over some bread and wine, transfiguring it into the actual living flesh and blood of their Christ. Followers then line up to eat the Jesus meat and drink his holy blood in a cannibalistic reverie not often seen outside Cinemax." Bozell and the others replied:

Willful ignorance combined with anti-Christian bigotry: not a pretty sight. Bill Keller, former New York Times executive editor turned Times columnist, put both on display on today's Morning Joe.

Joe Scarborough played a clip of Santorum criticizing President Obama and Hillary Clinton for at times speaking of "freedom of worship" rather than "freedom of religion." Santorum made his point crystal clear: merely having the freedom to pray is not enough.  People must have the right to practice their religion outside the confines of the sanctuary. But Scarborough and Keller claimed not to understand what Santorum was saying.  Keller then added his ugly coda: "sometimes Santorum sounds like he's creeping up on a Christian version of Sharia law." Video after the jump.