Rupert Murdoch has waded into the controversy about Syrian refugees - and asked that the U.S. accept only "proven Christians." Fortunately, he was hilariously smacked down on Twitter.
Earlier today, Murdoch tweeted, "Obama facing enormous opposition in accepting refugees. Maybe make special exception for proven Christians."
As Media Matters noted, this echoes sentiments of other right-wing figures. But such a policy is not only repugnant, it's un-American. From Vox:
The international refugee system was established in the wake of the Holocaust, after thousands of Jews attempting to flee Nazi Germany were turned away by the United States and other countries. (Ironically, one of the justifications for turning away ships of fleeing Jews was that they had somehow been "infiltrated" by Nazi spies.) Since then, however, the US has been the world's leader in resettling refugees so they can make a new life in another country. Historically, half or more of all refugees who have been permanently resettled have gone to the United States.
Most of those have been non-Christian. The most famous immigrations of refugees in US history — Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees fleeing communist Southeast Asia in the 1970s after the fall of Saigon; Russian Jews fleeing the Soviet Union in the late 1980s; and the late 1990s, when the US brought 20,000 ethnic Albanian Muslims to Fort Dix for temporary housing — have been of non-Christians.
Fortunately, there are still some true-blue Americans willing to speak out against such hatefulness:
Raw Story has more.
Graphic of Rupert Murdoch by DonkeyHotey via photopin cc
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