When is media going to learn that just because somebody calls himself religious, or even a religious leader, that doesn’t mean he speaks for or leads all the other people who call themselves religious?
Pat Robertson is a hateful nutjob. Once in a while, when he says something particularly hateful and nutty — like arguing that Sharon’s stroke is God’s punishment for subdividing the holy land — media put the spotlight on it and even if they don’t say he’s a bilious bozo, the attention they give implies it. So one wonders why they ever treat him as a religious leader.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is another alleged religious leader and the media get how dangerous he is when he says that Israel should be “wiped off the map” and that he hopes Sharon dies. You don’t hear media dare to suggest that he represents all Islam.
But when fringe extremists like the so-called American Family Association and the self-annointed Parents Television Council decry what they think is indecent or try to stop us from seeing a show they don’t approve of, media — not to mention the FCC — treat them as spokesman for the religious in a predominately religious nation. They are not.
I go to church every Sunday (well, not this Sunday) and call myself a Christian and Pat Robertson, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the AFA, and the PTC do not speak for me and have nothing to do with my view of religion, of God, or of decency.
