RELIGIOUS BIGOTS TARGET CHRISTIANS


                           BY GEORGE ROCHE


                     President, Hillsdale College





   What kind of men would deserve to be called, in print, "fanatics . 


. . thick-necked jugheads . . . uglier and uglier?"  What kind of 


organization could be ripped in public for its supposed "contrived 


emotion . . . snake oil ot tent revivalism," called "fervent" and 


"dumbed down"?  Could Sunday School classes be compared to 


groups of Islamic terrorists and a national leader of family renewal 


vilified as a modern version of Adolf Hitler, a "raving lunatic" and 


a "lop-eyed loon?"


   Religious bigotry in America? All these phrases were used in 


print to attack American men making an honest effort to be better 


husbands and fathers.  This vicious, intolerant language came 


from Scott Raab in the January, 1996, issue of Gentleman's 


Quarterly magazine.





Promise Keepers





 The target -- former Colorado football Bill McCartney and his 


Promise Keepers, a faith-based movement that emphasizes 


strengthening families by getting men of all ages to rededicate 


their lives to God, their families and wives.


   The message GQ chose to send couldn't be clearer. Anti-


Christian bigotry, alive and apparently thriving in America, 


justifies brutal attacks on men whose sole crime seems to be a 


consistent public commitment to strengthening their own spiritual 


lives and those of their families.


   Let's take another example of religious intolerance, aired on Na-


tional Public Radio's All Things Considered just before Christmas.  


Reporter Andrei Codrescu chose to comment on Thessalonians 


4:17, which offers St. Paul's version of the return of Christ and His 


embrace of all believers.  


   Before calling the passage "crap," Mr. Codrescu made another 


remark that simply defies belief.  Read the words from the 


broadcast transcript itself: The evaporation of four million [people] 


who believe in this crap would leave the world an instantly better 


place."


   NPR initially refused to apologize for Codrescu's insultingly un-


professional tirade (executive producer Ellen Weiss did admit that 


NPR "crossed the line," as though they didn't virtually live on the 


other side of the line all the time) and never did allow Christian 


Coalition director Ralph reed to respond.


   "This is a puritanical, conservative Christian country that wants 


for force its abominable Christian religion down everybody's 


throat.  Christians and Jews believe that religion is indispensable 


to morality.  That's a falsehood.  That's what drives these people 


to try and change everybody else." The speaker, George Carlin, 


echoes the views of the people who dominate television, radio and 


motion pictures.  They clearly despise Christianity, especially Roman


Catholics and Evangelicals.


   They direct all their creative energy and venomous ideology to 


making their million, but remain out of touch with the real world 


and the destructive consequences of their own opinions.  


   Teenagers who choose abstinence  get ridiculed on nightly talk 


shows.  The supposed "family hour" has disappeared.     


Television, radio and movies get more ideological and less 


responsible, more vulgar and less creative, more profane and 


less sophisticated.