Fox's Gibson: Christians tolerate those who are "following the wrong relig

[Coastie for Truth]

Throughout his promotion of his book The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought (Sentinel, October 2005), Fox News host John Gibson has remained vague about exactly orchestrating the alleged attack on Christmas beyond the "liberals" in the book's title. For instance, as Media Matters for America documented, during an appearance on the October 20 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, Gibson limited his criticism of those supposedly undermining Christmas to "liberals." O'Reilly, on the other hand, was compelled to narrow the focus of their offensive: "I think you made a mistake by saying it's a liberal plot," O'Reilly told Gibson. "It's the far left. It's the loony left, the Kool-Aid secular progressive ACLU America-haters. That's who's doing this."

Gibson was more pointed, however, during a November 17 appearance on Janet Parshall's nationally syndicated radio program. During a discussion about the alleged "war on Christmas," Gibson suggested that people "following the wrong religion" were not reciprocating the tolerance afforded to them by "the majority religion -- Christianity." He also said that as long as adherents of minority religions "are civil and they behave," Christians will tolerate them "without causing any trouble" -- a view endorsed by Parshall.

Right - and you know what follows right after the First Amendment in sequence

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
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[Sabriel]

1. Yeah, so STFU, you non-Christians out there. You're on notice.

Who does this guy think he is? As an atheist, I'm more than a little disturbed by his not-so-veiled threat for us to "be civil and behave." What if we don't?

Where's the virus that targets hypocrites and fundamentalists? It's about time.

[Maat]

12. Well, thanks, you religious-right Bully, Mr. Gibson.

Thanks for 'tolerating' me.

I'm a Religious Scientist, and I guess I get to attend my church services on Sunday as long as I don't bug YOU, Mr. Gibson.

Uh, Mr. Gibson, perhaps you would like to review the First Amendment. My participation is protected even if you don't like it. And, no, I will NOT be bullied by the likes of you.

What a **bleep** Mr. Gibson is.

[Hobarticus]

2. "As long as...they behave"? Oh, fuck off...

This is the core of the right-wing Christian cult. It's God as Daddy Dearest run amok. "Do as I say! DO AS I SAY!!! Goddamit....I am the LORD....DO AS I SAY!!!!"

How 'bout YOU behave, John? I guarantee Jesus has got a lot to say about your brand of 'faith'.

[Canuckistanian]

3. What a heartwarming message

Such compassion, such understanding, such.... :puke:

[hobbit709]

4. Christians tolerate those who are "following the wrong religion'

I've found that most of the fundies BARELY tolerate each other if from a slightly different church. I've never seen one that would tolerate ME.

[BOSSHOG]

7. In this fairly sparsely populated

community in South Mississippi there are at least 24 Baptist Churchs in close proximity. It is quite a hoot. Get pissed off at the preacher. Buy an acre or two down the road and start your own tax exempt enterprise in the name of Jesus Christ and take your flock with you to interpret the bible the "right" way.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Gibson is disgusting.

Christians can "tolerate" other reigious faiths as long as there adherents "behave" and "don't cause trouble"?!? By causing trouble I assume he means such meddlesome behavior as, oh, I don't know, demanding the right to free exercise of their own religion? Like having the nerve to ask that their children not be forced to observe Christmas at school? How dare they!

Get a clue, Gibson, you knuckle-dragging cretin. The First Amendment's Free Exercise clause means everybody -- not just you faux-victim "Christians" -- gets to practice their religion on an equal basis, free of interference from the government. It means nobody's religion is merely "tolerated" as long as they "behave," you condescending fuck. It means you have to behave, too, and not crap in everybody else's cornflakes. It means Muslims get to observe Eid and Ramadan and Jews get to do Passover and Hannukah and you "Christians" can't use the government to interfere with them in the slightest. All religions, including no religion, are equal. Got that?

[Maat]

13. Your post is great.

Please, put in an email, and email that ignoramus.

Or let me borrow your words and do so.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. Please, feel free to borrow!

[Maat]

16. Thanks.

Maybe tomorrow I will send ol' Gibby an email!

[ninkasi]

20. Great response...

Their arrogance is astounding, isn't it? I wonder what Gibson and Thomas Jefferson would say to each other?

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

These idiots are so full of themselves, they can't think clearly. Truly obnoxious, loathsome people they are.

[meow2u3]

6. Faux' Gibson PRACTICES the wrong religion

He, like his right-wing cohorts, worships the almighty dollar, while merely paying lip service to the Almighty.

[msongs]

8. typical christian rhetoric, sounds like what the Romans used to say....

before their culture was undermined and destroyed, just like the christians have undermined and destroyed many other equally viable cultures and beliefs systems.

then again, christians are not the only people undermining and destroying other cultures.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[Inland]

9. Misbehave as in objecting to a line like "following the wrong religion"

Because objecting to the characterization by Christians of non-christians would require, well, an end to tolerance.

[Coastie for Truth]

10. Transcript

Here's a .


GIBSON is John Gibson from FOX News and author of "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday is Worse Than You Thought." PARSHALL is Janet Parshall of Salem Radio Network's Janet Parshall's America
The transcript is from the November 17th edition of her show.

GIBSON: The whole point of this is that the tradition, the religious tradition of this country is tolerance, and that the same sense of tolerance that's been granted by the majority to the minority over the years ought to go the other way too. Minorities ought to have the same sense of tolerance about the majority religion -- Christianity -- that they've been granted about their religions over the years.

PARSHALL: Exactly. John, I have to tell you, let me linger for a minute on that word "tolerance." Because first of all, the people who like to promulgate that concept are the worst violators. They cannot tolerate Christianity, as an example.

GIBSON: Absolutely. I know -- I know that.

PARSHALL: And number two, I have to tell you, I don't know when they held this election and decided that tolerance was a transcendent value. I serve a god who, with a finger of fire, wrote, he will have no other gods before him. And he doesn't tolerate sin, which is why he sent his son to the cross, but all of a sudden now, we jump up and down and celebrate the idea of tolerance. I think tolerance means accommodation, but it doesn't necessarily mean acquiescence or wholehearted acceptance.

GIBSON: No, no, no. If you figure that -- listen, we get a little theological here, and it's probably a bit over my head, but I would think if somebody is going to be -- have to answer for following the wrong religion, they're not going to have to answer to me. We know who they're going to have to answer to.

PARSHALL: Right.

GIBSON: And that's fine. Let 'em. But in the meantime, as long as they're civil and behave, we tolerate the presence of other religions around us without causing trouble, and I think most Americans are fine with that tradition.

PARSHALL: I agree.

GIBSON: In other words, they'd like it in return.

[Maat]

14. Uh ... thanks, Janet Parshall, for your 'accomodation.'

I don't need it.

[Igel]

19. That makes Gibson's remarks sound completely different

from what was reported, doesn't it?

That's what I love about context. It frequently de-spins things.

Now the only problem is assuming we know what 'behave' means. But given the context, it doesn't seem to be imposing a really high standard.

Edited to add the '?'.

[Coastie for Truth]

21. I read the full transcript as

"Love it or leave it"

"Don't let the door slam you in the butt."

That is the context I perceive.

[alfredo]

11. They've narrowed it down to George Soros. I guess sooner or

later Barbra Streisand and Michael Moore will have to be trotted out.

[depakid]

17. Now, the NY Times has even had to weigh in...

This guy's not only a dick (I mean, just look at him) but he's bigot and an outright liar to boot!

Amazing he's allowed on the air- or that anyone would even publish or carry his book. Says something about just how little self-respect people have left in this country....

This Season's War Cry: Commercialize Christmas, or Else

This campaign - which is being hyped on Fox and conservative talk radio - is an odd one. Christmas remains ubiquitous, and with its celebrators in control of the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and every state supreme court and legislature, it hardly lacks for powerful supporters. There is also something perverse, when Christians are being jailed for discussing the Bible in Saudi Arabia and slaughtered in Sudan, about spending so much energy on stores that sell "holiday trees."

What is less obvious, though, is that Christmas's self-proclaimed defenders are rewriting the holiday's history. They claim that the "traditional" American Christmas is under attack by what John Gibson, another Fox anchor, calls "professional atheists" and "Christian haters." But America has a complicated history with Christmas, going back to the Puritans, who despised it. What the boycotters are doing is not defending America's Christmas traditions, but creating a new version of the holiday that fits a political agenda.

<snip>

The Christmas that Mr. O'Reilly and his allies are promoting - one closely aligned with retailers, with a smack-down attitude toward nonobservers - fits with their campaign to make America more like a theocracy, with Christian displays on public property and Christian prayer in public schools.

It does not, however, appear to be catching on with the public. That may be because most Americans do not recognize this commercialized, mean-spirited Christmas as their own. Of course, it's not even clear the campaign's leaders really believe in it. Just a few days ago, Fox News's online store was promoting its "Holiday Collection" for shoppers. Among the items offered to put under a "holiday tree" was "The O'Reilly Factor Holiday Ornament." After bloggers pointed this out, Fox changed the "holidays" to "Christmases."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/opinion/04sun3.html?hp

[Porcupine]

18. Ever hear of the wars of the reformation? The Irish "troubles"

The constitutional protections regarding the seperation of church and state where explicitly placed there because Americans watched with horror as European Christians slaughtered each other year in, year out, over points of doctrine.