Fox News Says Rep. Keith Ellison Is ‘Very Dangerous’ Because He’s a Muslim

I looked yesterday at Bryan Fischer’s bigoted and religion-based intolerance. Bad as his recent outbursts have been, including his brilliant assertion that gay people should be discriminated against in the same way we discriminate against shoplifters, there are conservatives who are just as bad, if not worse.

As an example of this, take Fox News host Eric Bolling (please), who claims that Democrat Representative Keith Ellison, who just happens to be a Muslim, is not only an apologist for Islam, but “very dangerous.”

Watch the spew, courtesy of Media Matters for America:

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By this logic, of course, all the Christians in Congress are apologists for their religion and also very dangerous. If you want religion-based bigotry, you need look no further than Bolling (and Fox News), who felt the need to point out that Ellison “raised his right hand and took the oath of office on the Quran.”

Oh dear. Are you kidding? Seriously? He took his oath on the Quran? (a copy of the Quran, by the way, which once belonged to the open-minded Thomas Jefferson David Barton wants us to believe was one of them).

Should he have taken it on the Bible instead?

Must everyone elected to Congress, whatever their religion, swear on the Bible?

Silly question, huh? That’s exactly what Republicans want: theocracy. The very thing the Constitution forbids. There is no difference at all between Bryan Fischer and Eric Bolling.

The significant point is that people elected to Congress do not have to swear on any holy book. All you need is fourteen simple words:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”

You could swear on the Necronomicon if you wished. Bolling’s whole gripe is just silly and betrays the extent of the GOP’s divorce from reality.

Fox News hates Muslims. The GOP hates Muslims. And Fox News hates reality, making it the perfect organ for the GOP. A happier marriage has not existed since the National Socialist Party and Joseph Göbbels.

In the long term, this strategy of getting old white people really angry and fearful will fail. Fortunately, angry white people are less of a renewable resource than they were in the 1930s (talk about things Fox News and the GOP REALLY hate).

If Fox News wonders about declining ratings, they shouldn’t: Bolling, like 9 out of 10 Fox News’ on-air personalities, is the reason why.

Bottom line is that according to people like Fischer and Bolling, if you actually exercise your First Amendment rights to be something other than Christian, you’re dangerous. It should be pretty obvious to everyone with a brain (sorry Fischer and Bolling) that this is not the America our Founding Fathers intended to bestow unto us.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.