Bill O’Reilly didn’t come right out and say that opponents of Indiana’s so-called “religious freedom” law are similar to the Al-Shabaab Islamic terrorists who slaughtered Christian students in Kenya this week but he certainly suggested a (non-existent) connection.
O’Reilly began his Talking Points Memo commentary last night with the following:
O’REILLY: Kenya, Africa - five radical Muslim killers murdered at least 70 people at a college in that country. At least another 75 were wounded.
Gunmen burst into a Christian prayer service, proceeded to shoot down the innocent worshipers. That comes after a mid-March suicide bombing in Pakistan, killing 14 Christians, wounding 70 others. A few weeks before that, Libya: ISIS killers beheading 21 Egyptian Christians. So you can see, Christians are being slaughtered all over the place.
Here in the U.S.A., verbal attacks against Christians are the headline. As we reported yesterday, some far-left people, aided by a sympathetic media, are now smearing Americans who oppose things like abortion and gay marriage. No question it is open season on Christians.
Later, O’Reilly specifically suggested that Christians are in danger because of “secular zealots”:
O’REILLY: The secular progressives have succeeded in putting people of faith on the defensive. Perhaps the best example of this is the pizza shop in Walkerton, Indiana. The media went to the store, the owner said they wouldn’t feel comfortable catering a gay wedding - a theoretical question as pizza not usually on the menu at wedding receptions. Well, all hell descended on the store as secular zealots threatened all kinds of things.
How about the “hell” that descended on Dr. George Tiller and his family as anti-abortion zealots assassinated him – after anti-abortion zealot O’Reilly repeatedly demonized him as “Dr. Tiller, the baby killer?” Or the hell that descended on an Arizona State University professor who dared to teach a class Fox & Friends didn't like? Or doesn’t that count because it was done in the name of Christianity and Conservatives?
O’Reilly closed his commentary by criticizing Christian leaders for failing to “defend the Christian faith,” though it’s not clear what kind of “defense” O’Reilly wants. A war on secularism? More of the same viciousness he unleashed on Dr. Tiller? And what about those Christian leaders who also oppose the Indiana law?
One thing is for sure: O’Reilly doesn’t mind violent imagery and metaphors. He closed his commentary by saying that because Christian leaders have not pushed back (the way he thinks they should), “the anti-religion people have a free-fire zone to attack at will.”
Watch it below, from last night’s The O’Reilly Factor.
UPDATE: Priscilla caught O’Reilly in a similar vein on Fox & Friends.