FOX's Bill O'Reilly isn't and hasn't been the highest-watt bulb in the chandlier--being, rightly, as he himself has frequently claimed...being a "simple man" and a "bloviator." We would add "loud" and, at times, abusive. Several times, he's bloviated on "faith issues" rather embarrassingly. We've sent old Bill emails advising him to stand down on theological issues, given his dangerous mixture of theological ignorance with hubris. But alas, he's stepped in it again. 1,000,000s of Christians worldwide will not be accomodating sodomy or other immoralities. Fred Barnes, FOX's Special Report, was far more sensible, civil, and even humble of date 27 Mar 2013. But, not Bill. Ignorance and loudness...ill-advised. Here's Levin's take on Bill O.'
Levin Takes on O’Reilly: What’s With Megyn Kelly?
Posted by Jeffrey Lord on Thursday Mar 28th at 12:17pm
It was a startling statement coming from O’Reilly, who has made much — and correctly so — of what he calls “secular progressives.” The other night O’Reilly himself sounded like a secular progressive on the issue of gay marriage, and Mark Levin took up the point on his own show.
Here’s the O’Reilly quote, which came in a discussion with Fox’s Megyn Kelly. (Hat tip to Real Clear Politics)
KELLY: What I’m saying is that when you ask —for example, I had an interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. What is it about calling a marriage — calling a gay union a marriage that offends you. How does it hurt a traditional, or a heterosexual marriage? And I didn’t hear anything articulated that was particularly persuasive. What people go back to —
O’REILLY: And I agree with you 100-percent. A 100-percent!… I agree with you a 100-percent. The compelling argument is on the side of homosexuals. That’s where the compelling argument is. “We’re Americans, we just want to be treated like everybody else.”
That’s a compelling argument. And to deny that, you’ve got to have a very strong argument on the other side. And the other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible.
Mark Levin picked this up and immediately, and correctly I would say, took issue with this. (Hat tip here to Right Scoop, here’s the excerpt from Levin’s show.)
“I heard this today and I really couldn’t believe it,” said Levin of O’Reilly’s Bible thumping comment. “It sounded like Barack Obama with his clinging to guns and religion line.” And yes indeed, it did. Bill O’Reilly, it seemed, was taking a whack at “the folks.” Yow.
What was even stranger was O’Reilly saying this:
The compelling argument is on the side of homosexuals. That’s where the compelling argument is. “We’re Americans, we just want to be treated like everybody else.”
That’s a compelling argument. And to deny that, you’ve got to have a very strong argument on the other side.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but there is a compelling argument in response to gay marriage. (And as said before, in this corner we sign on to civil unions.) That response — that compelling argument, which I share — has been made by… yes… Bill O’Reilly himself.
Back on June 5, 2006, O’Reilly was discussing this very same issue of gay marriage on his radio show, “The Radio Factor.” And he said this (hat tip to O’Reilly’s less than favorite media friends— Media Matters.):
Do I think it’s a threat to the union? No. Gay marriage, to me, not a big issue. But I will tell you this. If gay marriage becomes a reality, then polygamy has to be legalized, because you can’t say one alternative group is OK and the other isn’t. That’s not equal protection under the law. So, if you legalize gay marriage, then polygamy has to be legalized.
And right there — made by Bill O’Reilly himself — is the compelling argument against gay marriage. Once we go down this road— and as discussed previously in this space with the lawsuit for polygamist Kody Brown and this op-ed in the New York Times by George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley – the push will be on to legalize polygamy. And then polyamory. And then….to anything and everything.
The result: the effective abolition of marriage.
So.
O’Reilly, in our view, made a mistake with his “thump the Bible”remark the other night, and Mark Levin called it exactly right. It was a needless — not to say wildly inaccurate — characterization of O’Reilly’s own audience. “The folks” as O’Reilly likes to say. The folks who are in a war with, again as O’Reilly says,“secular progressives.”
And for Megyn Kelly of all people — she the lovely wife and Mom of 2 and a half — to not get the impact of 2,000 years of tradition from every faith on the face of the earth, not to mention the core of the compelling argument — is baffling.
The real key here is the “compelling argument” business.
Yes indeed, Mr. O’Reilly and Ms. Kelly. There is a compelling argument against gay marriage.
And it was made clearly and concisely by…..Bill O’Reilly himself back there in the mists of 2006.
If gay marriage becomes a reality, then polygamy has to be legalized, because you can’t say one alternative group is OK and the other isn’t. That’s not equal protection under the law. So, if you legalize gay marriage, then polygamy has to be legalized.
To borrow a phrase: The spin stops here.
/Greets, RA. Saw this on the net./
ReplyDelete(The following paper was inspired by Bill O'Reilly whose TV show favors God Dumpers and not "Bible Thumpers." Quotes are from "Vital Quotations" by Emerson West.)
DANGEROUS BIBLE THUMPERS OF AMERICA
ROBERT E. LEE: "In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength." (p. 21)
DANIEL WEBSTER: "If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper." (p. 21)
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: "I have made it a practice for several years to read the Bible through in the course of every year." (p. 22)
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: "I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us through this book." (p. 22)
GEORGE WASHINGTON: "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." (p. 22)
HORACE GREELEY: "It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave a Bible-reading people." (p. 23)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: "I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by himself to be the most pure, benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to man. I adhere to the principles of the first age; and consider all subsequent innovations as corruptions of this religion, having no foundation in what came from him." (p. 45)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: "Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would by now have become Christian." (p. 47)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see." (p.49)
WOODROW WILSON: "The sum of the whole matter is this----that our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually. It can only be saved by becoming permeated with the spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by practices which spring out of that spirit." (p. 143)
PATRICK HENRY: "There is a just God who presides over the destiny of nations." (p. 145)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: "Material abundance without character is the surest way to destruction." (p. 225)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: "Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus." (p. 237)
GEORGE WASHINGTON: "The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low, that every person of sense and character detests and despises it." (p. 283)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: "Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshiped." (p. 301)
CALVIN COOLIDGE: "The strength of a country is the strength of its religious convictions." (p. 305)
GEORGE WASHINGTON: "The perpetuity of this nation depends upon the religious education of the young." (p. 306)
Prior to our increasingly "Hell-Bound and Happy" era, America's greatest leaders were part of the (gulp) Religious Right! Today we've forgotten God's threat (to abort America) in Psa. 50:22----"Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver." Memo to God Dumpers: In light of Rev. 16:19, can you be sure you won't be in a city that God has already reserved for destruction?