As the mouthpiece for the radical Christian right, Fox News happily provides a public platform for their belief that the US military is being attacked by Satan's gay and atheistic minions led, of course, by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. And now that Jesus' BFF's have scored a small victory, Steve Doocy and his homophobic pastor pal just couldn't contain their gleeful gloating.
Friday, Steve Doocy began his "Fight for Faith" (Conservative Christian, that is!) segment by reporting that a Georgia Air Force base bannede the base greeting "have a blessed day" after "a handful of people" complained that it was discriminatory. (Doocy didn't mention that of the 13 people, 9 are practicing Christians.) He tossed to his guest, retired military chaplain and chairman of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, Ron Crews. Despite the fact that, as Crews would later point out, the base reversed its brief ban on the phrase, the banner promoted misinformation: 'Blessed' Ban, Air Force Base Can't Say 'Have a Blessed Day'."
Crews opined that those who complained "absolutely" have no case and "the one who is being discriminated is the one who is censoring speech." (Huh?) He continued: "The Air Force and all of our military have the job of protecting speech, not censoring speech. There's nothing wrong or inherently religious by just saying 'have a blessed day." He spoke about how this is a nice Southern Christian tradition (wonder if that was said while those front lawn crosses were set afire?) Doocy screeched "absolutely" when Crews said that "you can't go anywhere" in South Georgia "without somebody saying bless you."
Doocy said that the "problem" was that the Air Force "listened" to those who complained but that once this outrage "went viral" things changed. As the banner proclaimed, "Blessed is Back," Crews announced that praise be to Jesus, the guards at the base can continue their gracious, Southern, Christian greeting. As Doocy nodded and grinned, Crews thanked the Air Force for "realizing that this is not religious speech [Huh?], this is not offensive, this is just common sense." Crews claimed that the phrase is just "being kind of people."
Never wasting an opportunity to bash Mikey Weinstein, head of the MRFF, Crews said that he sent a letter to him in which he told him that "your people down there must have mighty thin skin to be upset about the phrase, 'have a blessed day'." Doocy nodded, grinned, and said yeah as Crews lamented the absurdity of the complaints.
As the SNL "church lady" would say, isn't it special that Ron Crews would talk about how it's nice to be kind to people considering that the military is endangered by mixing straight and gay people in barracks, the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" was a terrible "threat to freedom," and that the presence of gays in the military will lead to sexual harassment. He also yearns for the good, old days when gays couldn't get a security clearance. His chaplains group is calling for a congressional investigation of Mikey Weinstein's supposed access to top officials at the Pentagon - hence, the nasty, little dig made about Weinstein's organization.
But seriously, what do you think Doocy and Crews would think if a military based decided to greet people with "praise Allah, may peace be upon him." Somehow, I don't think they would put that under the rubric of being nice!
“There, I said it out loud and in public!! I’ve identified myself as an ‘out’ unafraid, proud dog-fearing christian, making a brave stand against the militant atheists trying to kill dog & destroy our christian nation and our Judeo-christian ethic. I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other brave ‘out’ militant christian domionist nationalists like Bill O’Reilly, Rick Santorum, and Jerry Falwell (looking up from down there), and Ted Cruz. etc. And, oh buy the way: Merry Christmas too!! So, take that!!”
There is nothing ecumenical about it.
Maybe I’ll just be nice and wish they “Have a nice f#ckin’ day.” Or I’ll go really off and tell them flat out “I won’t have a blessed day and you can take your blessing and shove it where the sun don’t shine.”