As with so many issues, there is a double standard, on Fox News, regarding religious liberty issues. Last month, the network was all freedom of speech during their extensive criticism of an Islamic group which protested the showing of a film deemed offensive to Islam. Brandeis U drew Fox's ire when it cancelled Ayaan Hirsi Ali's honorary degree due to student opposition to her anti-Islamic commentary. But now that the Harvard Extension Cultural Club will be hosting a re-enactment of a "black mass," which some Harvard students, alumni, and the Catholic Church have condemned, Fox is throwing all that talk about academic free speech and tolerance out the window. This morning, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, in validating the view of a conservative Catholic Harvard student who opposes the event, showed that for Fox, not all free speech is created equal. And it was another opportunity to denigrate those Ivy dens of inequity so it was all good...
The event is not endorsed by the school, although the Dean states that the school does “support the rights of our students and faculty to speak and assemble freely.” But free speech wasn't a concern for Hasselbeck who, only last week, in invoking "PC," attacked a student who objected to a Dartmouth fraternity's Cinco de Mayo themed party. She reported that the "Harvard Cultural Studies Club wants to invite you to spend a night with Satan." She omitted the detail that this club is part of Harvard's extension school and not Harvard University itself. She didn't mention that the ceremony is a reenactment of a historically based ceremony and not a worship service. In describing a Satanic mass she suggested that the participants will be using a stolen piece of communion bread which is, not surprisingly, wrong. The chyron used the phrase "Harvard Club" in describing the event. She introduced her guest, Jim McGlone, an anti-same sex marriage, anti-abortion Catholic Harvard student who has started a petition against the event.
He spoke about how he and other students feel that this is a "mockery" of just not Christians but "all people of faith." As he spoke, the Fox chyron set the propaganda "Has Harvard Lost Its Soul?" He claimed that his and other petitions have 50,000 signatures. Hasselbeck whined about how the school has addressed the insensitivity of the issue but hasn't outright condemned it. In reporting that the sponsor says that this is about history and not religion, she did use the proper title with "extension" in it.
McGlone asserted that "freedom of speech has nothing to do with this" because the purpose of freedom of speech is "to get after the truth, to build a civil community, to build friendships across disagreements." He claimed that "this is more about obscenity than speech." Just to make sure you know whom to hate, the chyron read "Black Mass at Harvard." McGlone compared this to a reenactment of a KKK meeting or a burning of the Koran. Hasselbeck summarized the propaganda message: "You believe that this is an attack on Catholics, on Christians." She asked if he wanted the school to cancel it. He wholeheartedly agreed. He repeated that this isn't "freedom of expression" but "an obscenity."
This isn't even a worship service. It's a reenactment of a ceremony that lives more in myth than reality. But the bottom line is that the freedom of speech which Fox touts for Christians applies equally to non-Christians. Oh, I forgot, Elisabeth Hasselbeck doesn't approve of free speech for non-Christians during holidays... Silly me...
A response from the organizers who, most likely, will not be interviewed on Fox, is found here.
