As Jon Stewart said, "conservative victimization is the true genius of what Fox News has accomplished." Topping the list of right wing victims are Christians who, despite their large numbers, are, according to Fox media, being persecuted on a daily basis - especially by evil, secular Hollywood. While Fox radio culture clubber Todd Starnes doesn't go as far as Catholic League president, Bill Donohue, who says that "Hollywood is controlled by Jews," Starnes does claim, in his Fox Nation article, that "It's no secret that Hollywood DESPISES CHRISTIANS."
Starnes bases his contention on the claim of a Christian American Idol contestant ("Idol" is part of the Murdoch empire, BTW) to tone down his religiosity. Starnes also says that "Glee" (also part of the Murdoch empire) "routinely bashes Christians." What show is he watching? As a devoted Gleek, I can attest that there is no "routine Christian bashing." In fact, they've introduced a sympathetic new character who is an evangelical Christian. Is Starnes referring to the first season when Quinn's Christian father throws her out of the house when he discovers she's pregnant? "Glee" does deal with gay issues including the toxicity of gay bullying - two topics that make the religious right rather uncomfortable. In fact, Fox fave Brent Bozell once criticized "Glee" for promoting a "Glee Agenda" in its portrayal of the homophobes as nasty bullies. He felt that the show should have been more sympathetic to the anti-gay characters. Really, I kid you not!
Starnes also doesn't like another of my favorites "GCB" because it features Christians as "lunatics." Actually, it features Christian hypocrisy. Art mirrors life? Poor Todd. That Christian cross must be just so heavy....
Besides, who am I to judge such a deeply personal matter? For all I know they could be right and I wrong.
For you to lump people like (for example) Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King in with Starnes, Donohue and the other Christian hypocrites, professional Xtian victims and Christofascists so beloved of Fox Noise is ridiculous.
I would imagine my fellow NewsHounds feel the same.
First of all, Starnes- American Idol has no shortage of Christian singers. The current season has so many of them that they hired a pastor.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/american-idol-pastor-offers-support-contestants-families/story?id=16033448
I wish that was April Fools, but it’s not.
Second off- If you’re a major name that came out of American Idol, you’re a trainwreck. Jennifer Hudson is the only one who’s a trainwreck in a way not related to her being a horrible person, her problems are directly related to how many horrible things happened to her shortly after she got big.
In fact, if Clarkson, Lambert and Underwood’s precidents in “the worse I am offstage, the further I go” department count for anything, as well as Taylor Swift when we include America’s Got Talent…the singer you’re talking about is gold. She’ll probably be one of the biggest Christian singers ever, just because she’s being so horrible to others about her faith.
Ok, rant off.
Or we could segregate the Catholics from the Evangelical Protestants and send the Protestants for a little vacation at Club Spanish Inquisition or Club Huguenot. The Catholics could spend their vacation time at a picturesque little German or Swiss village (of course, one that’s controlled by Protestant zealots—during the Thirty Years’ War, whole communities of Catholics and Protestants were forced to flee or face extermination for being on the “wrong” side).
Or we could send these folks back to the Plymouth Colony and let them see for themselves just how “welcoming” the Puritans were for people who had differing perspectives on Christianity.
Then—just before any of these folks actually get killed—we bring them back to the present and ask them, “So, do you REALLY think modern American Christians are being persecuted?” Only the true d-bags would stick to their “woe is us—we’re so persecuted” shtick. (Of course, that probably means that the whole FoxNoise crowd would still maintain how badly treated they are. For them, we could send them on a one-way trip with the time machine.)