Fox News plays to the fears and bigotry of its aging, white audience who live in abject fear of America's changing ethnic and religious demographics. For these folks, weaned on the belief that you can't be a good American if you don't believe in God, the existence of atheists poses a serious threat to their way of life. And that's why Fox is waging a constant war on atheists which, in this week's edition, started with the Fox friends whining about evil atheists who pressured the Navy to remove Christian bibles from taxpayer funded lodging. In keeping with Fox's propaganda reinforcement strategy, it was repeated on "Outnumbered" where the gals and "one lucky guy" continued to pander to Fox's audience's fear and loathing of atheists with some really dumb commentary, dare I say batshit crazy!
Wednesday, Outnumbered tackled the newest bit of agita hitting the Christian right; i.e. the removal of Bibles from US Navy lodging after "two concerned service members" contacted the Freedom From Religion Foundation which, in turn, notified the Navy that the bibles, in showing favoritism towards Christianity, violated the 1st Amendment. Sandra Smith reported that the bibles were being removed "but chaplains and military members are fighting back." She didn't mention that among those fighting back are the hate group, The American Family Association and former military chaplain and ace homophobe Ron Crews who said that having gays in the military is "a grave and ominous threat to freedom." She read part of the "atheist" complaint which cited a "government endorsement" of religion.
She asked Jesse Watters whether this is "reason enough to not have a bible around for those Christian believers when they want one." (The Constitution isn't good enough?) A smirking Watters said "absolutely not." Watters, who never served, said that he were the Navy he "would say you guys are on your own, protect yourself, we're going to protect these guys over here, cuz you guys don't deserve it." (WTF?) Watters worked in the requisite Fox Muslims get better treatment than Christians meme when he asserted that "atheists would sue the Navy if they gave out the Koran." He said that this is "bible specific" because "they hate Christianity and they don't want any religion" which is a lie because the FFRF if concerned about the 1st Amendment- just like the right wing groups beloved by Fox. He said he doesn't "understand why the Navy is so afraid of these atheists." He noted how the Navy "stands up" to enemies but "caves" to the atheists.
Jedidiah Bill surmised it's because they know that Christians "won't fight back" and opined that it's "ridiculous because they're not forcing anybody to pray." Smith: "Aren't they forcing the Christians to not have accessibility and not read the bible?" (Scuse me, if they want to read the bible they can get on their own dime and not on the taxpayer's).
Andrea Tantaros responded to this batshit crazy comment with "that's an excellent observation" and then proceed to her own, even more batshit crazy comment which, once again, shows her abysmal understanding of US history and her pathological need to attack the President: "So the Establishment Clause was designed to prevent people from trying to get people to read certain religious texts. The atheists are acting almost in their own form of religion right? [chorus of yeses]. A godless religion, like religious zealots trying to eradicate any kind of religious texts, references God or Christianity so arguably they could be in violation of the Establishment Clause because they're using the 1st Amendment, I see it as a sword and that's exactly what the 1st Amendment was designed to do, I mean these bibles were donated, let them have the bibles. The military is under attack by the PC police under this administration and that is why I think they're caving."
The stupid continued. Smith: "This is being pushed in anybody's face...it's in a drawer...it's not in your face..." Harris Faulkner talked about "conflicting messages" because "when something happens to you in the military, they send out a chaplain to pray for you so now what you're telling our men and women who are serving and putting their lives on the line, you can have someone pray over you, but you can't read the material that tells you all about what they are saying." Bila asked "if atheists get away with this, which I don't understand the logic here, you don't want to read a bible, don't read it..." And so it went....
Memo to Outnumbered: Christian bibles in taxpayer funded military facilities represent as much a violation of the Establishment Clause as Korans would be in the same setting. Memo to Tantaros, the atheists aren't the government so they can't violate the Establishment Clause which had nothing to do with preventing people from reading "certain texts."
BartCenter, author of the Atheist Camel Chronicle says it best: “Spreading the fear of atheist influence, as small as it is in reality, is a strong motivator to the Fox faithful... not famous for their ability to think critically or discern reality from hype. It works like a rallying cry, it cements support for the most extreme conservatives, never mind the fact that atheism is the least of the causes of what truly infects and affects this nation's stability and progress."
That Tant broad is not the brightest light in the studio. Without her notes and teleprompter, she’s lost.