Anti-Religious Bias

Well, that’s some “Good Morning America” on a Sunday. ABC’s morning-show website carried this Sunday sermon: “Holy Water May be Harmful to Your Health, Study Finds.” Liz Fields reported with great solemnity that "Despite its purported cleansing properties, holy water could actually be more harmful than healing, according to a new Austrian study on 'holy' springs." Researchers at the Medical…

In this last installment of my back-to-school series, I will address possibly the most controversial aspect of Thomas Jefferson and public education: Did he advocate and expect only a completely secular public education system? Rather than have it remain only in churches or private schools, Jefferson proposed that religious education be incorporated in the public education system, too — but…

In March, the Associated Press ran a 470-word "Big Story" item about the case of of Elaine Huguenin, an Albuquerque wedding photographer "who declined to shoot the commitment ceremony of a lesbian couple." The couple filed an anti-discrimination claim with the state's Human Rights Commission, which found that Huguenin, who runs her business with her husband, had violated state law. New Mexico…

The Washington Post reporter today that Mayor Vince Gray (D-Washington, D.C.) confirmed it was he who pressured gospel singer Donnie McClurkin to back out of Saturday's city-sponsored concert honoring the late Martin Luther King, Jr. McClurkin was the target of local gay activists because of comments he made in 2002 in which he testified about how he used to practice homosexuality but repented…

On Monday, the perilously liberal Huffington Post put the following headline on its front page: 6 Famous Documentaries That Were Shockingly Full Of Sh*t   Unbelievably, one of the films totally lambasted in the piece was - wait for it! - Bill Maher's "Religulous" from 2008 (serious vulgarity alert):

A federal judge has ruled that the creation of a cemetery trust fund in 2007 by then-Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee – the subject of a lot of hysterical coverage a month ago in the New York Times – was a completely legitimate and warranted financial transfer. "Because these funds were held in trust as prescribed by canon law, they were independent of the general…

In Sunday's edition, the Washington Post perhaps unintentionally did conservative critics of Reza Aslan a favor by printing liberal religion scholar Stephen Prothero's review of the UC Riverside creative writing professor's new book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. "Aslan is more a storyteller here than a historian" who doesn't bring "much new here other than [his] slick…

The media has proclaimed that conservatives and proponents of religious liberty are engaging in a “war against women.” Conservatives, so the narrative goes, fired the first shots by opposing taxpayer funded contraceptives and abortofacients under the HHS Mandate, which will go into effect Jan. 1, 2014. Nancy Pelosi first claimed Republicans were engaging in a “war against women” in 2011, and…

You knew the warm fuzzies for Pope Francis couldn't last that long. While the media initially went gaga over Pope Francis, hoping beyond hope he was some liberal reformer who would open up the Catholic Church to all kinds of heterodoxy, the reality is slowly setting in. The first-ever Latin American pontiff is warm, genial, charismatic, and an excellent communicator with both the public and the…

Author Reza Aslan was disingenuous about his biases in his weekend interview with Fox News Channel's Lauren Green, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell told FNC's Shannon Bream on the July 31 edition of America Live. Aslan, as a Muslim, denies the divinity of Christ, and should have been straightforward about how his religious beliefs would necessarily color his…

While most liberal media outlets have been positively giddy about Pope Francis's off-the-cuff remarks to the media about gay Catholics, Tim Padgett is having none of it, complaining, accurately, that the media have misconstrued the pontiff's comments. But Padgett's beef is not with inaccurate secular media outlets but with the church itself. "Catholic doctrine still vilifies homosexuality, and…

Last year, Entertainment Weekly magazine honored the arrival of a viciously anti-Catholic tilt on the FX show “American Horror Story: Asylum,” promoting how actress “Jessica Lange returns, this time as a terrifying nun." Bigotry sells – big – in Tinseltown. This year, after that “Asylum” season aired, Hollywood has honored the show again by showering it with 17 Emmy nominations. There’s a…

Bill Maher has said some disgusting things about religion before. Possibly the most disgusting came on HBO’s Real Time Friday when the host actually said, “God in the Old Testament is a psychotic mass murderer” (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo):

It seems as though some media personalities never miss an opportunity to slam the Catholic Church. Take for example the July 18 Imus In The Morning on Fox Business, in which host Don Imus took an unnecessary swipe at Pope Francis and the sex abuse scandal surrounding the Catholic Church. Speaking with Father Jonathan Morris, a regular Fox News contributor, Imus suggested that, “because of all…