AOL News Hates Atheists

From that oh-so-illustrious news source, AOL News, comes an article about how “some” African-American Christians are upset at Obama’s inaugural speech reaching out to “non-believers” as well as Hindus, Muslims, etc:

By mentioning, for the first time in an inaugural address, the 16.1 percent of Americans who check “no”’ when asked about religion, Obama turned it into the most controversial line in his speech — praised by The New York Times editorial board and cited by some Christians as evidence that he is a heretic, and in his well-spoken way, a serious threat.
With that one line, the president “seems to be trying to redefine American culture, which is distinctively Christian,” said’ Bishop E.W. Jackson of the Exodus Faith Ministries in Chesapeake, Va. “The overwhelming majority of Americans identify as Christians, and what disturbs me is that he seems to be trying to redefine who we are.’”

News flash! “Some” African-American Christians can be just as religiously intolerant as “some” white Christians! AOL News has just discovered not all black people think and act alike! Shocking!

Now keep in mind that there are more atheists in America than there ever were AOL subscribers. This is classic Fox News-style journalism: Find someone who’s saying what you want people to hear, and “report” that they said it. It’s a win-win situation for the conservative media – they manage to attack atheists (and Hindus and Muslims) while making black people look like bigots. Never mind the fact that these criticisms are coming from a small minority of the African-American Christian community, or that AOL’s poll attached to the article shows that 74% of its increasingly conservative readers have no problem with Obama’s inclusion in the speech. They need a controversy, and if none exists, they’ll make one. This is exactly the same plan as when the networks spotlighted the several dozen people referring to themselves as “PUMAs” during the Democratic Convention.

Say the right words, and you magically become the most important constituency in the country. Notice that the media completely ignores the existence of bloggers until a few prominent ones criticize something Obama does or says – like when Clinton was picked for Secretary of State. Then, suddenly, the media starts printing stories about how bloggers are angry, and quoting Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers as if they represented all of us. You watch how many columns these journalists print warning Obama that “post-partisanship” means that he needs to distance himself from the blogosphere. They want a fight – that’s what sells the news.

Anyway, back to the subject.

Jackson said he and others have no problem acknowledging that “this country is one in which everybody has the freedom to think what they want.’” Yet Obama crossed the line, in his view, in suggesting that all faiths (and none) were different roads to the same destination: “He made similar remarks in the campaign, and said, ‘We are no longer a Christian nation, if we ever were. We are a Jewish, Hindu and non-believing nation.'”
Not so, Jackson says: “Obviously, Jewish heritage is very much a part of Christianity; the Jewish Bible is part of our Bible. But Hindu, Muslim, and nonbelievers? I don’t think so. We are not a Muslim nation or a nonbelieving nation.”’

If you’re not going to include Hindus, Muslims, and atheists in your definition of America, Bishop Jackson, you can leave my people out of it, too. We know what the end result of religious xenophobia always is, century after century.