As a the Christian right's propaganda outlet, Fox News never wastes an opportunity to attack atheists who are right up there with minorities, Muslims, and immigrants on the official Fox News enemies list. Whenever the Christian right attempts to blur the lines between church and state, Fox is right there to support them and, in so doing, advance Fox's ongoing persecuted Christian meme. Fox's official propaganda priest, Fr. Jonathan Morris, who actually believes that there should be no "wall of separation" because "God" is mentioned in the Constitution, is a vital part of this narrative. Obviously, he is not a constitutional scholar; but he is very adept at promoting the Christian right agenda such as prayer in public schools and school vouchers. He also pushes Christian right paranoia, popular on Fox, about how those evil atheists are out to destroy America, even to the point of trying to take "God" off the money and take prayer out of West Point. And despite his, and other Fox hosts' attacks on atheists, sweet lil Fr. Morris also thinks that atheists are "disrespectful" - OH, The Irony!

Yesterday's Sundays with Fr. Morris segment was part of Fox & Friends "The Fight for Faith" series, the last of which was devoted to Steve Doocy's attack on atheists who hold a Day of Reason in juxtaposition to the National Day of  Prayer. Alisyn Camerota reported that a court house in Florida "will soon become the first government building in the United States to honor atheists with their own monument." Good Anglican (not liberal Episcopalian) Tucker Carlson said that it is legal but asked if it is necessary and introduced official Fox propaganda priest, Fr. Jonathan Morris.

Carlson immediately labeled atheism as a "species of religion" when, in fact, it is a world view that does not embrace theism; ergo, not a religion. Continuing with the false and Christian right argument about how atheism is a religion, he wanted to know why this was being done if atheists oppose religious monuments on public property and "here they are putting a religious monument in place on public property."

Fr. Morris explained that this was an agreement, among the atheists, the courthouse, and a Christian group, which acknowledges that if the Ten Commandments is displayed at the courthouse, atheists should be allowed to have an atheist bench. Fr. Morris was in agreement with Carlson's point "that it was silly in that why do we have the Ten Commandments there at a federal courthouse because of the tradition of law, justice, and truth with being based also on religious revelation of what God's will was for us and how we should behave." 

Fr. Morris proceeded to bash the atheist group. He said it was a "sad" thing that "rather than just respect different people's opinions" (Like they do on Fox News - not!) this has become "not an atheist monument but a Christian protest monument, protesting the fact that the 10 Commandments are there." (Who cares about that silly First Amendment "establishment" of religion thingie!) Morris said that it was "disrespectful." He claimed that the bench "made fun of the Ten Commandments." He didn't mention that the bench includes quotes from Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin as well as an excerpt from the Treaty of Tripoli which said, OMG, that the US isn't a Christian nation.

Fr. Morris made the claim that local court decisions should be the arbiter for religious monuments on public property. He made the absurd claim that when local people wanted to be "reminded of the source of law (the people, padre, not "God") then that's respected." (Wrong padre, there were Jesusland court cases which ruled that courthouse displays of the Commandments is unconstitutional.) He cited court cases which ruled that nativity scenes can stand along with menorahs and sputtered "but this is a protest." (Wrong, padre, it was a law suit, just like the ones governing the nativity scenes.)

Morris asserted that this reveals the "silliness" of the atheists because they "do not want the Ten Commandments to be allowed" and claimed that the bench is a "mockery" of the Commandments "in order to prove their point that they are to be respected in that same way meaning that their views should be able to go against the views, in this case, the Ten Commandments." Tucker Carlson might have been encouraging Christian vandalism when he noted that it might become a target for graffiti but he "hoped not."

If Fox & Friends were fair & balanced they might cite the Anti-Defamation League's position that public displays of the Ten Commandments  "can lead to the kind of religious divisions within otherwise harmonious communities that our founding fathers sought to avoid by constitutionally mandating the separation." But who cares about that kind of thing when there's Christian agitprop to be peddled. And remind me, who is being disrespectful here? 

More irony - it's the atheists who were calling for fairness and balance!!!