Monday, December 06, 2004

There's hate and there's hate, I guess

Focus on the Family [sic] reports on the resignation of an NPR reporter for using "hate speech."

"You're evil, horrible people. You're awful people," she said, identifying herself only as "Rachel." "You represent horrible ideas. God hates you and He wants to kill your children. You should all burn."

Chris Carmouche, publisher of laptoplobbyist.com, said he's accustomed to liberals being offended by his group's moral stands—but added that Buchman's message was over the top.

"We want people to know that this is not an isolated incident," he said. "People have to realize there's not just a media bias, but in many cases there is a media hatred, toward anything conservative, Christian or traditional."


Well, I can say she was certainly blunt. But when you consider that, in the US compared to Europe:

Majorities in most countries say it is necessary to believe in God to be a moral person. But Canadians and Europeans – both in the West and the East – take the secular view that it is possible to be moral without believing in God. Opinion in the United States is closer to that in most developing countries, where agreement is nearly universal that personal morality is linked to belief in God.


is it really true that there is unfavorable bias towards Christians and not atheists and agnostics?

But there's a more important issue here: when Rachel Buchman said "You should all burn," wasn't she merely turning conservative Christians' rhetoric back on themselves? And so if it's hateful to say to conservative Christians "You should all burn," isn't the "God damn you" implied by conservative Christians ("Hell is not an eternal party place. It is the home of never ending torment, anguish and permanent damnation...") equally hateful?

Is this hate not directed against anyone who is not a conservative Christian?

Should Focus on the Family be focusing on its own planks?




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