Sean Hannity’s all-male religious panel got its just rewards on The Daily Show last night. As usual, Jon Stewart struck right at the heart of what was wrong with Hannity’s picture – not the opposition to Obama's contraception mandate, per se, but to the self-aggrandizing holy war that Hannity and his like-minded crusaders tried to make out of it. “I gotta hand it to these guys on imagination," Stewart said. "First, wine becomes blood, then insurance reform becomes war."
Stewart brushed aside with the disdain it deserved, the panel’s attempts to paint themselves as Christian martyrs over health insurance coverage for birth control. Noting that there are Christians truly being persecuted in places such as China and Egypt, Stewart jabbed, “Believe me, the Christian guy making bricks in a Chinese forced labor camp? He’d love to be on Hannity complaining about a $20 copay for Ortho Tri-cyclen.”
Stewart also quipped, “This government hates religious organizations so much, it lets them keep $100 billion a year in offerings tax free. Persecute my ass like that! I’d love it!”
He summed it up with, “You’ve confused a war on religion with not always getting everything you want. It’s called being part of society.”
Amen, brother.