Godwatch: Proselytizing On PBS

For those who cling to the false belief that American Public Broadcasting is still somehow liberal, PBS is going out of its way to prove it's Wingnut cred:

Two months ago, PBS gave Richard Perle a whole hour to repeat discredited neocon arguments about Iraq and the Middle East, including the notion that Saddam Hussein had a working relationship with al Qaeda, and the bizarre argument that Osama bin Laden’s “network has been destroyed.” As Media Matters noted, Perle’s PBS special “made a series of assertions about the Iraq war that have already been shown to be false.”

Okay. That's pretty bad. And now PBS is planning to air a show on religious "liberty" called Wall Of Separation.

The film's synopsis:

“The Wall of Separation is a metaphor deeply embedded in the American consciousness. Most of us take for granted the idea that politics and religion should not be intermixed because of the heritage of The First Amendment in our understanding of freedom of religion. The No Establishment Clause has protected us from the entanglement of religion with government, and the Free Exercise Clause has secured the right for all faiths to engage in their religious practices without interference from the state. America is a religiously pluralistic culture guided by a secular government.

“…[W]hat would surprise most Americans is the discovery that this is not what the Founding Fathers of our country intended when they established our nation and wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights. They in fact had a radically different definition of establishment and the role of religion in state and federal governments than we do today. So radical, in fact, that some say the modern understanding of the role of religion in the public square is exactly the opposite of what the Founders intended.”

Riiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhttttttt. "Where," you may be thinking, "do they get this stuff?"

Wall Of Separation is produced by Boulevard Pictures. The President of  Boulevard Pictures is Jack Hafer:

...an evangelical Christian who told one interviewer that Christians have an obligation to “shape the culture” and “spread the faith.” He urged Christian young people to go into the arts as “kingdom-spreaders” and as “a form of missionary service.”

The writer/director of the film is Brian Godawa. Godawa used to work for the Chalcedon Foundation. This foundation is the central hub of Christian Reconstructionism.

What is Christian Reconstructionism?

"Reconstructionists detest democracy and hope to usher in a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in America based on their reading of biblical law. They are best known for seeking to impose the harshest penalties of the Old Testament penal code: the death penalty, for example, for gays, adulterers, fornicators, witches, incorrigible teenagers and those who spread false religions."

So then it will come as no surpirse that Godawa said:

“Society SHOULD suppress immoral behavior and it does so on many fronts. So if homosexualism is immoral, then yes, it should be suppressed, just like child molesting, its ugly step-brother hidden in the closet, just like adultery, just like promiscuity.”

Christian Reconstructionists make a tv special that is a blatant attempt at Christian Revisionism of our history to justify their own desire to have their religion rule the land, and PBS decides that it's appropriate for them to air it?

So, it's acceptable for extremist religious groups to use our public broadcasting to use lies to proselytize? Okay. Get cracking Muslim Fundamentalists! I'd love to hear what your take on the U.S. Founding Fathers' intent with the Constitution really was.

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Comments

[Dwight Bobson]

I thank PBS for these kind of programs. I want to know who the crazies are on both sides of the culture wars. I want to know what they think and what twisted logic they use on their true believers.
PBS is for everyone and I want them to show me what all sides are saying, not simply those with whom I may agree.
I am not afraid of the messages of the extremes. They keep me alert to be more aware of my responsibilities as a citizen.

[Mobtown Shank]

I don't need PBS to show me who the crazies are. They're generally pretty easy to recognize.

I also don't need PBS to help legitimize their crackpottery by giving them air time.

And clearly this side of the "culture war" involves lying about and revising history to justify a problematic viewpoint.

I don't think PBS should be using public resources to help the religious right Proselytize and spread lies (which is what this is). That's what the mainstream media is for.

And I'm sure the people who made this pro-Jesus "documentary" would feel the same way if there was a documentary by Satanists claiming that the this country was founded on Satanic Principles (which is a statement just as true as saying the US was founded on Christian principles in that both statements are bullshit).