For Fox News' culture war discussions stoke the anger of those who fear a changing America and also promote very important core, right-wing beliefs. On Saturday’s Fox & Friends, Pete Hegseth and his guest provided us with a full, frontal and less than credible update on what you really need to know!
As the BIG, BOLD, BANNER proclaimed, “The Culture War Rages On,” traditional family values paragon, Hegseth framed the culture war message by informing us that we might have missed several “crucial” stories in the eternal culture war that Fox News is valiantly fighting. He introduced the smirking, self-named “Conservative Millennial” and CRT( uber right wing news media) host Allie Beth Stuckey who was there to provide “her take” on these latest outrages to the patriarchy.
A stunned and amazed Hegseth reported that “Australia is auditing kids' books to make sure they’re not too gender specific.” Stuckey (who saved her virginity until marriage because she made an abstinence pledge to her father and God – seriously) said that Australia is also monitoring toys because “they’re trying to obliterate any kind of gender distinction in order to advance the ball down the (air quotes) gender equity court” which, she claimed, is the feared and loathed “social engineering.”
FACT CHECK - As reported, on May 22nd, this story is a total crock. This is not being done in Australia. The false reporting was based on gender bias research that was NOT adopted by the school system in any Australian state.
Stuckey claimed that this was also happening in Sweden which has (OMG) gender neutral pre-schools “in which boys are taught to be more like girls and girls are taught to be more like boys.” She made the unsubstantiated claim that “studies” have shown that children naturally follow gender stereotypes because “gender and sex are scientifically intertwined so the more we advance this anti-science progressive agenda, the more confused our kids will be, the more unstable they’ll be as adults.” Hegseth agreed and claimed, with no evidence, that this type of education “doesn’t work.” (Actually, the "anti-science, progressive" evidence shows the negative effects of gender stereotyping, but this is Fox so…)
The next topic was Louisiana’s strict new abortion law that sets the limit for legal abortion at 15 weeks. In asserting that abortion is neither right or left, but a human rights issue, she pontificated that abortion is “a human rights issue” and made the bogus claim that a fetus can feel pain at this point. Despite the harsh reality that this law will restrict a woman’s options, Allie described it as a “common-sense, decent” which she hoped the rest of the country will follow.
FACT CHECK – What Stuckey neglected to tell us is that the law will only take effect if Mississippi succeeds in upholding its 15-week ban which, given the viability parameters of Roe, might not be constitutional – something not mentioned.
The last outrage was, according to Hegseth, California’s ban on state travel to Oklahoma because “it considers the policy there to be discriminatory to LGBT folks.” (He rolled his eyes when saying LGBT). He quipped that California is operating like its own country.
Stuckey explained that this is no big deal because the law says that private adoption agencies can use their religious freedom to deny same-sex couples the ability to adopt a child – in other words, to discriminate against LGBT folks cuz Jesus. She accused California of not “honoring religious freedom, or the First Amendment, or the Constitution." She outright lied when she claimed that California is forcing “pro-life” centers to “advertise for abortion.”
FACT CHECK – the California law requires that anti-abortion clinics fully disclose that they are not licensed medical facilities and that they do not discuss abortion as an outcome. The law is now before the Supreme Court.
In inserting another very important Fox narrative (evil “sanctuary cities”) Hegseth added that California “doesn’t enforce its own immigration laws.”
Watch the truth-twisting, right-wing propaganda from the June 2, 2018 Fox & Friends.