Whenever America's conservative Christians feel that they are being attacked by evil secularists, and "the gay agenda," Fox News gives them warm validation for this supposed "war on Christians." Yet Fox News is the place where "you can bash Islam with impunity." This was recently underscored by the appearance by Fox's resident homophobic, racist hate monger and Jesus BFF, Todd Starnes who was given a Fox & Friends pulpit from which to advance the Florida Christian "outrage" about an advanced placement history text which, OMG, is supposedly biased against Jesus while promoting, OMG, Islam. Starnes continued his crusade (or is it jihad!) against the book on the Hannity show during which Starnes, a graduate of the very Christian Lee University, and college and seminary drop-out Hannity, criticized the scholarship of the book with distorted information about Islam. As is said, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing; but in promoting an agenda to promote hate and divide America, Fox News is just fine with that!
Against a visual backdrop of "Textbook Travesty" (as opposed to Hannity Horror?), Sean Hannity, last week, reported that a Florida textbook is raising "serious concerns over its alleged Islamic bias." (Yowza, got the agitprop out in nine seconds!) Hannity didn't report that the Florida Department of Education approved the text. He showed a page, from the book, that was titled "Muslim Civilizations 622-1629" and told folks to keep in mind that the book has "zero chapters on Christianity or Judaism." (Hannity is ignorant of the fact that there were no specific "Christian" civilizations but, rather, different nation-states in which Christianity was only a part of the politics). Hannity showed some quotes from the book including the one which defines, accurately, "jihad" which, OMG, is compared to the Crusades which as any good Christian knows, was all about saintly Christian soldiers vs. evil Muslims.
Todd Starnes sighed as he whined about 36 pages dedicated to Islam which, of course, is appropriate given the length and breadth of Islamic civilization. He lamented that there was not one chapter devoted to Christianity and not one positive mention of Jesus. He noted that the book says that some considered Jesus to be the savior while "definitely" "declaring" that "Mohammed is God's messenger." (Starnes has a reading problem. The quote, shown by Hannity, says that "according to Muslim belief " Mohammed "heard the voice of the Angel Gabriel calling him to be a messenger from God." - Where is the definitive declaration?)
Starnes continued to complain about how Islam is defended and claimed that the book says that "Islam is wonderful to women" and that "you'd think that there are Victoria's Secret" stores in Muslim countries. (ROFLMAO - there's one in Dubai and several in Saudi Arabia!) Hannity tried to paint Islamic culture as being universally oppressive to women with his comment about how Islamic women can't drive or attend school when the reality is that these strictures apply to women in some parts of the Islamic world and not in more progressive Islamic countries. Starnes cited the stoning of women which is a practice relegated to the more fundamentalist cultures dominated by men who seek to oppress women - just like the American Christian Taliban that sees women as breeders who are not entitled to reproductive freedom. He noted that "none of this is mentioned in this book." In broad brushing Islam, Hannity continued to cite examples of oppressive "Sharia." In a truly LOL moment, Starnes fulminated about how the book re-writes history in discussing Christian Crusader "massacres" which is exactly what the Crusaders did when they took towns from Muslims.
Starnes whined about how the book's publisher is giving him the brush-off. He cited a survey done by Citizens for National Security which claims that "eighty textbooks are filled with Muslim bias." Another ROFLMAO given that this group is your garden variety paranoid Islamophobic group that actually believes that the Muslims "have infiltrated our schools, our colleges, our government, our treasury department." Their board includes Fox fave, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser and Islamophobe Daniel Pipes.
Hannity wanted to know if this is a "whitewash" because "the definition of jihad is wrong." He didn't explain why this is so. Starnes agreed with this supposed "distortion of jihad." As a final testament to his ignorance, Hannity wanted to know where the ACLU is as they don't want "Jesus or prayer in school." (Hannity doesn't know the difference between teaching about religion which, for Islam, is an integral part of their history and imposing it). Starnes brayed about when you "put baby Jesus in a school play and the ACLU is filing a lawsuit" and the 36 pages of "Islamic doctrine" which have no bible verses. It does have the 10 Commandments but Starnes didn't mention that. Nor did he mention that the book discusses present day Islamic terrorism.
Fox News should change its motto to "we don't need no education."
In fact, it was this little event that finalized the schism in the Christian Church. Somewhat ironically, Catholic Pope Innocent III had blessed/launched the Crusade with an intent to help reunite the two branches; after learning about the sacking, Innocent realized the Christian church would never come together because, as Innocent wrote, “How, indeed, will the church of the Greeks, no matter how severely she is beset with afflictions and persecutions, return into ecclesiastical union and to a devotion for the Apostolic See, when she has seen in the Latins only an example of perdition and the works of darkness, so that she now, and with reason, detests the Latins more than dogs? As for those who were supposed to be seeking the ends of Jesus Christ, not their own ends, who made their swords, which they were supposed to use against the pagans, drip with Christian blood, they have spared neither religion, nor age, nor sex. They have committed incest, adultery, and fornication before the eyes of men. They have exposed both matrons and virgins, even those dedicated to God, to the sordid lusts of boys. Not satisfied with breaking open the imperial treasury and plundering the goods of princes and lesser men, they also laid their hands on the treasures of the churches and, what is more serious, on their very possessions. They have even ripped silver plates from the altars and have hacked them to pieces among themselves. They violated the holy places and have carried off crosses and relics.” (taken from the Wiki article on the Fourth Crusade) Of course, once all the ill-gotten gain made its way back to Rome, Innocent wasn’t quite as upset with the guys.
