Adam's Apple
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- Apr 25, 2004
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National Media Witch Hunt Against The Religious Right
By Quin Hillyer for the Mobile Register
May 20, 2005
Memo to the national media, and to the political left in general: Get a grip. Stop being paranoid. The "religious right" isn't evil, doesn't run the country, and won't destroy your liberties. So stop spouting all that nonsense about "theocracy" and "ayatollahs." Stop fighting against a mythical bogeyman. Stop scaring people.
For background, consider that the media for years had problems not just with Christian conservatives, but with religion in general. The craziest example was the sub-headline in a national news magazine back in the 1990s that noted "the surprising unsecularity of the American public." When did "secularity" become the norm? Why was it "surprising" to the editors that the American public is religious? This is, after all, a country where more than 90 percent of people profess belief in God.
The current media freak-out, however, began after President George W. Bush won re-election. Maureen Dowd of The New York Times wrote immediately that Mr. Bush was running "a jihad in America," that he "got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule." Yeah, right. As if the only reasons for 60 million Americans to support Mr. Bush or oppose John Kerry were variants of bigotry or stupidity.
In truth, the sky isn't falling. But Ms. Dowd has returned repeatedly to the same theme, even starting one column with this line: "Oh my God, we really are in a theocracy."
Such fulminations have become the norm in today's punditry. Rarely does a day go by without at least one column on the news wire lamenting that rule by domestic ayatollahs is at hand.
In the pages of the Register on May 15, for instance, columnist Cynthia Tucker warned that "our science infrastructure is under attack from religious extremists." A day earlier, Leonard Pitts and Ellen Goodman both wrote in similar terms against the religious right. On May 10, it was Clarence Page's turn. On May 3, Carl Hiassen opined against religious "zealots" in a "tizzy."
And on April 24, Ms. Tucker sputtered that the Christian right's "antediluvian agenda represents a serious threat to American democracy." If they get their way, she wrote, "the entire nation will live according to the rigid rules of a handful of self-righteous folks who distrust modernity. They would dictate the way we worship, live, work, have sex and even die. ... These extremists have much in common with the jihadist wing of Islam."
for full article
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-5_20_05_QH.html
By Quin Hillyer for the Mobile Register
May 20, 2005
Memo to the national media, and to the political left in general: Get a grip. Stop being paranoid. The "religious right" isn't evil, doesn't run the country, and won't destroy your liberties. So stop spouting all that nonsense about "theocracy" and "ayatollahs." Stop fighting against a mythical bogeyman. Stop scaring people.
For background, consider that the media for years had problems not just with Christian conservatives, but with religion in general. The craziest example was the sub-headline in a national news magazine back in the 1990s that noted "the surprising unsecularity of the American public." When did "secularity" become the norm? Why was it "surprising" to the editors that the American public is religious? This is, after all, a country where more than 90 percent of people profess belief in God.
The current media freak-out, however, began after President George W. Bush won re-election. Maureen Dowd of The New York Times wrote immediately that Mr. Bush was running "a jihad in America," that he "got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule." Yeah, right. As if the only reasons for 60 million Americans to support Mr. Bush or oppose John Kerry were variants of bigotry or stupidity.
In truth, the sky isn't falling. But Ms. Dowd has returned repeatedly to the same theme, even starting one column with this line: "Oh my God, we really are in a theocracy."
Such fulminations have become the norm in today's punditry. Rarely does a day go by without at least one column on the news wire lamenting that rule by domestic ayatollahs is at hand.
In the pages of the Register on May 15, for instance, columnist Cynthia Tucker warned that "our science infrastructure is under attack from religious extremists." A day earlier, Leonard Pitts and Ellen Goodman both wrote in similar terms against the religious right. On May 10, it was Clarence Page's turn. On May 3, Carl Hiassen opined against religious "zealots" in a "tizzy."
And on April 24, Ms. Tucker sputtered that the Christian right's "antediluvian agenda represents a serious threat to American democracy." If they get their way, she wrote, "the entire nation will live according to the rigid rules of a handful of self-righteous folks who distrust modernity. They would dictate the way we worship, live, work, have sex and even die. ... These extremists have much in common with the jihadist wing of Islam."
for full article
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-5_20_05_QH.html
