As Fox News constantly informs us, America, a Christian nation, is constantly being besieged by evil atheists who want to take Jesus out of the public square. In so doing, Fox is pandering to those who object to their tax dollars being spent on women's health care at Planned Parenthood; but who have no problem with Christian symbols in the taxpayer funded public square and schools. Recently, an Ohio public school took down a portrait of Jesus (the schlocky Aryan Jesus hung in every Catholic home in the 50's), hung in the school foyer, because of concerns about the cost of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, two groups on the top of Fox's shit list. While anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of the First Amendment would agree that there is a church/ state issue here, Bill Hemmer, one of many conservative Christians in Roger Ailes' stable, just doesn't get why poor, ole Jesus can't hang out in this school.
While Hemmer, cuz he's officially fair & balanced ya know, had a "fair & balanced" discussion of the issue, it was clear, as it often is with his fellow newsies Martha MacCallum and Megyn Kelly, which side he was on. Yesterday, in his best boyish aw shucks manner, he asked the Freedom From Religion Foundation representative why this portrait of white, surfer dude Jesus has to come down because it's a long standing tradition since 1947 and up till now, nobody has complained. He seemed really concerned about how the students and the community felt. Don Barker informed Hemmer that the Constitution supersedes the opinion of the community. (Hey, Bill, the southern community was none too happy about de-segregation but the rule of law prevailed). Hemmer pressed Barker about how many people objected to the portrait - a question tied into the Fox meme that it's only a few nasty Christian haters who are spoiling it for the rest. (But when one Texas mom complained about an "unpatriotic" Texas curriculum, she was warmly welcomed on Fox.)
In the second segment, Bill allowed the attorney, whose conservative Christian legal organization, Liberty Institute defended the school's position that the portrait should stay, to ramble on about the high cost of defending the portrait. Hiram Sasser mentioned that his group is soliciting money for an "indemnity fund" for schools that are fighting the godless heathens. Hemmer didn't press Sasser on any of the constitutional issues, such as another Ohio lawsuit which mandated that a school take down the Ten Commandments. He did ask him, as he did with Barker, how the students were dealing with having their Jesus taken down from the "Hall of Honor" where he shared a spot with a number of other white dudes who are part of Ohio's history.
Once again, the "fair & balanced" Fox "news" programming validates the concerns of persecuted Christians. But I'm sure that Hemmer and Fox News would be equally supportive of Koranic verses being displayed in a public high school - ya think!?!
I’d be interested in finding out the FoxNoise kkkrew’s reaction if the Jesus portrait hanging in a public school just happened to have an image that was a bit more, shall we say, “ethnically more appropriate”—such as looking like one of His adherents who live in modern Bethlehem or Nazareth. Or, heaven forbid, the image of “Black Jesus” from the same-titled episode of the 1970s sitcom, “Good Times.” (Actually, if you just do a Google Image search for “Black Jesus,” you’ll get a lot of images—including a couple of stills from the “Good Times” episode. There are a few images that I don’t quite get—and quite a few that would really cause some FoxNoise heads to explode.)