Here We Go Again

Rev Barry W. Lynn, the Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, ventured over to Fox News yesterday, where he joined anchor Martha MacCallum for yet another dire discussion about the state of Christianity in America today. Despite Lynn's best attempts to present facts underlining his point that America is not, in fact, a hostile wasteland of militant anti-Christian activism, MacCallum could not be persuaded, informing him that "the town that I grew up in in New Jersey had a Supreme Court fight over having a manger in the town, so that's just, you know, one small example of where that's happening," without any hint of awareness that, yes, it is indeed but one small example in a country still chockablock with Christianity.

Honestly, it's so old already. Fuck.


[Transcript below.]

Lynn: First of all, it's ridiculous to say that you can't come to the public sphere with faith. Look at Barack Obama, a man who's steeped in and who talks about religion and spirituality consistently through the presidential campaign; he did get elected. And of course there is no systematic or otherwise anti-Catholic bias in this country. If you want to talk about bias against groups, still anti-Muslim bias certainly, anti-atheist bias, yeah, you could write a book about that—but there's no book you could write about anti-Catholic bias. It's just that some people believe that the Catholic Church of today wishes to impose on all of us, Catholic and non-Catholic, a lot of positions and ideas that we don't choose out of our own spiritual faith and convictions. It's the pressure they place on secular politicians to do what the Church wants that bothers so many Americans, even some Catholics.

MacCallum: Mm, I don't know about that. And I think that, you know, that this assumption that so many Catholics wanted to change and that there isn't—I think most people accept that there is a Christian, an anti-Christian bias in this country. It's fine to bash—

Lynn: Where?! Where do you see this? Martha, where do you see this?

MacCallum: —pretty much, you know, uh, uh, uh, it's the, it's the ultimately acceptable bashable group! You know, ha ha ha, look at, you know, look at the Catholic Church.

Lynn: No, it is not. We got 80 percent of America says they're [Christians]; we're not bashing people, we're not tearing down Nativity scenes, burning churches—this is a fiction; this is not the real world of America, where most people want to get along.

MacCallum: All right, well, the town that I grew up in in New Jersey had a Supreme Court fight over having a manger in the town, so that's just, you know, one small example of where that's happening.