A Wrest Coast Perspective

by Frank Darbe

The Old Double Standard

It now has become painfully obvious that in the media the old double standard is at work. Ministers, from opposite sides of the political spectrum and different races say that God is punishing America with 9/11 and Katrina, but only one of them called un-American. What kind of un-American horse trash would say that god was punishing America with 9/11 or Katrina? That would be Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and John Hagee, of course. But somehow their vile hate speech is not being broadcast 24/7.

quote:

“JERRY FALWELL: And I agree totally with you that the Lord has protected us so wonderfully these 225 years. And since 1812, this is the first time that we've been attacked on our soil and by far the worst results. And I fear, as Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, said yesterday, that this is only the beginning. And with biological warfare available to these monsters -- the Husseins, the Bin Ladens, the Arafats -- what we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact -- if, in fact -- God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.

PAT ROBERTSON: Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population.

JERRY FALWELL: The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.

PAT ROBERTSON: Well yes.

JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."”
Partial transcript of comments from the September 13, 2001 telecast of the 700 Club

Yes, that’s right. These right wing, religious, conservative, Republican, white ministers were saying the God was damning American’s for our life style. These fine upstanding homophobes are staunch supporters of Republican Presidents and conservative policy. But all I hear about on the news is what Minister Write has said these terrible things, and it is a 24/7 feeding frenzy.

And what about that other guy? John Hagee?

quote:

“JH: All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.

The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it would was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades.

So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the Day of Judgment, and I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.”
Some hateful, radical ministers -- white evangelicals -- are acceptable

So he says that the act of American’s caused God to Damn us all. Man, now that man is some un-American piece of horse trash. Why don’t we hear about Hagee, Robertson, or Falwell? Might it be because they are conservative white Republicans?

Why is there a double standard in the media? Why is it all right for a white conservative Republican minister to say that 9/11 was gods punishment of American and if a black liberal says it, he hates America? Why is a black liberal Democratic minister un-American for saying something stupid and wrong, but a white conservative Republican minister just exercising free speech?

The double standard must stop. If Obama must repudiate his minister and a personal friend,then Republicans should stand up and let Robertson and Hagee that their blame America first speach is unacceptable.

(Fallwell has shuffled off this mortal coil. One can only assume that God must have been punishing him for something.)

Frank, my favorite news sources: The Daily Show and Colbert actually pointed out the irony of the outcry from Rev. Wright's comments while "forgetting" the past comments of Falwell and Robertson.

I will say in defense of the news sources: The Falwell/Roberson comments were made seven years ago. The news cannot remember anything that happened fifteen minutes ago.

The big question is that will Rev. Wright kill the chances of Obama to be elected as President.

The conservatives think this last news cycle is the slam dunk for which Hillary and the Republicans have been looking.

Kathy

If reporting were really fair and ballance, then news stories about Reverend Write would point out that he is not out of the mainstream. Falwell and Robertson are about as mainstream in Christianity as you can get, at least if you consider the size of their ministries and their influence in culture and the poltical process. By constantly replaying of the stories, the media is letting people forget that Write was not unusual at the time. When you factor in Hagee there is a very definite appearance of a double standard. A conservative white minister can teach as gospel that God is punishing the United States and that is OK.

Believing that God punishes nations for ther bad choices is part of Christain, Jewish, and Muslim doctrine. It is not called un-American, unless you are a black liberal. That is a double standard.

I also watch Colbert and the Daily show. Though they do cover the news from their own point of view, and an excellent point of view in my opinion, they are still a commedy show. It is the real news media that should be covering this story and giving it the context that it deserves, and that is to show that Write is part of the mainstream in the area of his doctrine that they are criticising, and as American as Apple pie.

I'm a little surprised, Frank, that you consider cussing out white America to be part of the liberal mainstream. But then it's news to me that gloating over the wrath of God is part of the conservative mainstream. I never realized New Orleans was flooded because of its sinfulness. I stupidly thought it had something to do with being below sea level. I knew that San Francisco was also a very sinful place (one of its most charming qualities!) so I suppose the 1906 earthquake was divine retribution of some sort. Nothing to do with being located on a major fault in the earth's crust.

Why does Kansas keep getting ravaged by twisters? Why does New England keep getting whacked by nor'easters -- not to mention the long & dismal, if undramatic winters? We're descended mainly from Puritans and good Catholics, and except for our senior Senator, there's scarcely a sinner amongst us. The Perfect Storm laid barely a ripple on Hyannisport but beat the holy environs of Gloucester and Scituate to flinders. Heaven forfend! Does God have lousy aim?

Wait until a wrathful, vindictive deity gets around to smiting Las Vegas!

Or maybe I've got everything mixed up. I have this naive faith that people say all sorts of things when soused, goading a receptive audience or in the grip of religious fervor, and often come to wish had never been quoted.

I'm also a bit surprised that your first post implied that "hate speech" doesn't get the 24/7 coverage it richly deserves. I stupidly thought it had quite enough already. But as I said, I often get things wrong. All my life I've been laughing at things that were meant to be serious and taking seriously things that were meant as a joke.

However, if hate speech or biased reporting really does get more popular, perhaps we can see such future headlines as this:

THE DAILY SLANDER -- "All the news that's fit to distort"

SHORTAGE OF HATRED LOOMS

You think the energy crisis was bad?

Invective, denunciation, pretense, hypocrisy and sham might also be found wanting. Even plain, old, dirty, rotten lies might soon be in short supply.

In the interest of the salutary effects of more vitriol and calumny in public discourse, this newsrag is designating 24/7 coverage to every nitwit, humbug, snoop, polemicist and curmudgeon who has formerly felt ignored. Every citizen from plutocrat to pansy will not have his peccadilloes passed over.

Particular attention shall be given to people aspiring to political office. It has come to the attention of our editorial board that several prominent politicians have laid themselves open to guilt by association because some of the people who like them are less than perfect. Well, well, well! Ordinary citizens are allowed to be imperfect, but to seek office in our representative system, henceforth only saints shall apply.

Any candidate who has ever attended a satanic ritual, nasty sermon, raucous frat party, or has gazed at the bra strap of the girl ahead of him in math class and experienced naughty daydreams; well, I'm sorry to say, "You're disqualified!"

If this should result in "limited government" in the sense of nobody being moral enough to serve, well, what the heck? To paraphrase Santa Claus, "Trash away, trash away, trash away all!"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Tom Gelsthorpe,

Tom, where you may not adhere to the particular doctrines of Write, Hagee, Robinson, and others, the idea that God punishes nations is inherent in the doctrines and teachings of the major religions. And, when major figures such as Falwell, Hagee, and Robinson express their ideas they are the mainstream. Few people blinked when conservative ministers make statements that are stupid and offensive. It is their religious right and their right to free speech that allows them to speak out in an offensive matter. When Write speaks from the same point of doctrine, the doctrine that God punishes errant nations, it is an issue that requires thousands of hours and miles of print.

This is a double standard. Unless you go to the comedy channel few people point out that Write is well within the mainstream of Christan doctrine when he proclaims gods punishment of our nation. And he is joined by far more than simply Hagee, Falwell, and Roberston when he says 9/11 and such events as Katrina are the punishment of God, the act of God damning Americans for our actions. Remember, when we say God damn something, we are not cursing but calling down the wrath of god our the object or person.

Now, if these news stories covered how white conservative Republican religious leaders preached the same doctrine to their parishioners in every story, and covered how those men have influenced conservative Republican leaders for decades, there would be no double standard. But they don't. The big media outfits have singled out Write, and that is a double standard.

My personal opinion, I don't find anything moral, ethical, or noble about these religious leaders. But they have the right to worship as they see fit in this nation, just as I have he right to refuse to worship as I see fit.

What I find appalling is an obvious, biased, double message. If you are a white, Conservative, Republican minister you are safe from having your biased, bigoted, and wrong headed opinions reported on. If you are a black, liberal, Democrat minister, you will be dragged through the mud endlessly.

My beef is not with the religious on either side, it is with a news media biased in favor of white, conservative, Republican, ministers that practices a double standard in their reporting.

quote:

The big question is that will Rev. Wright kill the chances of Obama to be elected as President.

If this does kill Obama's chances, then we are a shallow, biggoted, uggly nation that deserves what we get. And perhaps God is visiting Gods wrath upon us, both the innocent and the guilty, as vile as that doctrine sounds to me.

quote:

If this does kill Obama's chances, then we are a shallow, biggoted, uggly nation that deserves what we get.

YUP!

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What I find appalling is an obvious, biased, double message.

That is not the only thing that I find appalling. That we have people who are so immature in the walk of faith just frustrates me so very much.

I have faced these bigoted opinions and reactions to my own illness. My sister often said that various family members received illnesses because they were sinners; yet when she got cancer, it was "her time," "God was testing her?" blah, blah....

Rabbi Kushner address this whole moral quandary best in his book, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People."

Just watched both Oberman and O'Reilly --- that combined with "The Daily Show" and "Colbert" mixed with a little "World News Tonight" plus "Today" is how I get my news.

Republican, Democrat, White, Black, Hispanic, Other, conservative, liberal: can anyone say that Karl Rove (as well as the Clinton machine) have not sold their souls' to the devil?

I do not like to abhor any person(s) so I would appreciate feedback that will make me change my mind that Mr. KV is a scum-sucking, under-belly-dwelling feeder of feces.

Kathy

Give me a freaking break. Do a google search on Robertson or Falwell. What you find are plenty of stories about the stupid comments those men made. The New York Times even mentioned Falwell's comment about 9/11 in his obituary! The Rev. Jerry Falweel is dead and the liberal press still criticizes him for his comments!
New York Times

quote:

As a result, he was a lightning rod for controversy and caricature. He apologized, for example, after televised remarks suggesting that the 9/11 terrorist attacks reflected God’s judgment on a nation spiritually weakened by the American Civil Liberties Union, providers of abortion and supporters of gay rights, and after he called Muhammad a terrorist. He was ridiculed for an article in his National Liberty Journal that suggested that Tinky Winky, a character in the “Teletubbies” children’s show, could be a hidden homosexual signal, because the character was purple, had a triangle on its head and carried a handbag.

quote:

What I find appalling is an obvious, biased, double message. If you are a white, Conservative, Republican minister you are safe from having your biased, bigoted, and wrong headed opinions reported on. If you are a black, liberal, Democrat minister, you will be dragged through the mud endlessly.

My beef is not with the religious on either side, it is with a news media biased in favor of white, conservative, Republican, ministers that practices a double standard in their reporting.

The news media is biased in favor white conservative Republicans? Darbe, have you ever read any of these newspapers? The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times? Or the newspaper in any city in America? Have you watched CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC?

I am at a loss for words by the statement that "the news media favors white conservative Republicans." If that is true I would love to see all of the positive coverage Pres. Bush, his administration and the Republicans in Congress have gotten. Darbe, please post as many favorable articles or stories in the news media about white conservative Republicans that you can find.

I need some of you Wresting theologians to help me out; I get confused so easily. God punishes "errant nations" -- is that right? Flesh peddlers in Hollywood and avant garde types in Greenwich Village offend divine sensibilities, so He registers His displeasure by sending hurricanes ashore in the Gulf of Mexico? Or does it snow in New Hampshire because Big Easians have too many strip joints? Why does He shred midwestern strip malls with tornadoes? Pound North Carolina and South Florida with tropical storms? Have Kansans, Carolinians and Floridians defied some heavenly order? Why did Yellowstone National Park's forests burn down a few years ago? Because greedy, ungodly lumber companies cut down too many trees elsewhere? Or not enough? It's so easy to get mixed up.

If Hollywood is such an awful pit of sin, why does it have the nicest weather in the world? To lull miscreants into living in that balmy fault zone until the deity can smite them with an earthquake?

Does India have so much crummy weather because God dislikes Hindus? Gee whillikers; they're so nice to cows -- why would a benign deity carry a grudge against that? Why are there so many disease-carrying insects in Africa? They devote entire villages to the raising of a child; that seems pretty sweet. Is it because people there don't go to church enough?

Which godly minions are running around with clipboards, keeping track of whose sins are worst and who needs to be punished? The way things happen now, the process seems awfully inexact. Maybe God is the swellest fellow around, but his bureaucrats are inept. Has anyone thought of that?

I'm just a dope who sees flood waters strike mainly on low ground, irrespective of the moral standing of local residents. It seems that earthquakes hit mostly along fault zones, fires where it's dry. Lousy weather is common everywhere at times, which I thought is why people live under roofs instead of out in the open.

I'm deeply perplexed here and need someone to help me out. If being stupid is a sin, I'm really in trouble.

Tom the first response to your question of theologians on this forum was

Then I realized that we do have a resident "expert" in most things religious named Joe .

From my own personal experience I have forulated a set of beliefs by which I can live.

Background: I was diagnosed with Stage 3-B/4 cancer when I was in my very early 30s. I had a 30% chance of survival for five years. I guess I was raised with such confidence that I never thought it was God's punishment (although the date of my surgery ironically was the same date of a previous terrible sin)

I was conflicted because I DIDN'T DIE OF THE CANCER but I saw too many good people who did die of the diseases not nearly as advanced as mine.

I think the Jewish scriptures were stories handed down in the oral tradition until they were put in writing. These stories were people's best explanation for the cause of events. Perhaps there was a great flood. Perhaps a few good people were saved. Perhaps some terrible places were destroyed. Man tried to wrap his mind around those events and the story of Noah and the Ark became a story to be told around a campfire.

As man grew in faith and discovery, mature people formed an opinion of God that was Einstein's God. A God of order in the universe. They took the words of the Scriptures to mean that this God gave us free will, set the laws of order in motion and stepped back to let man totally screw everything up.

I believe it was Norbert Wiener who said that God can't be all knowing and all powerful at the same time.

The simple explanation is that the Jerry Falwells and Rev Wrights want it both ways. They want to blame bad things on what they perceive as bad behavior. From the grave, I don't think Rev. Falwell would say that his own early death was because he (Falwell) was a sinful man who had disobeyed God -- although I think his actions proved that he did just that.

Nope, can't have it both ways.

Kathy

Most mainstream news outlets are liberal. That I believe is a fact. Fox New, to no one's great surprise, counterbalances that.

I think, however, that is beside the point. We are discussing the double standard of RELIGIOUS REPORTING. WHITE vs BLACK MINISTER REPORTING.

TiVo is a wonderful thing. Last night I watched an old episode of Saturday Night Live. It was the one that was hosted by Brian Williams shortly before the writers' strike shut down the program for almost three months.

I was amazed at how the political climate had changed in three months. Brian Williams was in a parody, the premise of which was that the biased news media had already selected Hillary as their candidate.

Just recently the same blaming has been that the news media finds Obama their darling. If I hadn't seen this little time capsule I might have forgotten that liberal, scribble, the news media is fickle.

Now I'm going to take a nap.

Kathy

Tom, Kathy's first line is pretty much it. Your premise is theologically errant, so there is no need to proceed further. It is not theologically correct to say that God punishes errant nations. At least, not in THIS world.

As for being in trouble for being "stupid", I think you can rest easy. For one thing, you are not stupid. For another, the only "sin" that I believe could prove spiritually fatal is not attempting appropriate change of heart once one has seen the error of one's ways. In the Bible, it seems God got pretty pissed at "hard hearts" and "stiff necks"--in other words, people who refused to listen and refused any possibility of change for the better.