The religious right has created a false historical narrative which claims that America was founded as a Christian nation and, ergo, those who seek to maintain separation of church and state are both anti-Christian and unpatriotic. There is a cottage industry in this bogus, revisionist "Christian" history as seen in Mike Huckabee's history for kids DVD's and anything written by bogus historian David Barton. While our Founders expressed themselves in devotional terms, they were Deists who, in creating our Constitution, sought to ensure that this country would not become embroiled in the types of church/state conflicts which had wracked Europe for centuries. But in the bizarro world of the Christian right and Fox News, our nation was founded on "faith" which is under attack by secularists. On Christmas Eve, Kelly Wright and Juan Williams advanced this narrative which worked in some war on Christmas figgy pudding.
Minister Wright (officiated at Megyn Kelly's second wedding) framed the agitprop message immediately: "Faith and America go hand in hand and today is the perfect time to remember that." The agitprop chyron: "Faith And America, the Impact of Religion on Our Nation's Founding." Wright asked Juan Williams to talk about faith and politics and how Christmas "gives us added value." Williams had obviously partook of the Fox Christmas Kool-Aid as he immediately referenced Thomas Jefferson (Whose Virginia Statue of Religious Freedom spoke of the "laws of nature" and was a precursor to the "Establishment Clause"). He continued with the gospel according to the religious right with his comments about how the Founders who based law on "God given rights" and how every freedom we have is from God who gave America a "special" religious status and belief system that has permeated our history.
Wright spoke of the awesomeness of American faith and - wait for it - tolerance and then worked in the patented Fox persecuted Christian claim when he asked Williams if he felt that "faith, to some degree is under fire." Williams provided the patented Fox response with commentary about "some" who "want to limit public expressions of faith and even the sentiment of Merry Christmas, some people say it should be just happy holidays..." (WTF - Nobody is mandating that only happy holidays be the only greetings) Given that Fox News hates atheists, Williams' comment, that we are a religiously tolerant country, was absurd. Given that "God" is nowhere in the Constitution, the chyron, "Christmas & the Constitution, Remembering Our Nation's History" was also absurd.
As Newshounds Ellen reported, Juan Williams seems to be starting the new year as a good and faithful servant of right wing propaganda. This segment appears to reinforce Williams' furthering of the scripted talking points. And funny, Fox can't even call a truce in the war on Christmas on Christmas Eve. So much for religious tolerance!
And speaking of tolerance, inasmuch as I sometimes disagree with Williams, he is able to competently substitute for Bill O'Reilly. So why can't he have his own daily show? Oh right, never mind...
