Well this was a disaster of a week.
Another Islamic radical attack on America leaves 49 dead and 53 wounded. And like clockwork
there go the bitter clingers of the media - bitterly clinging to myths about guns and Christians.
The “bitter clinger” phrase, of course, originated with candidate and Senator Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign when he was captured on audio tape at a San Francisco fundraiser saying this, bold print supplied by me:
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
It was a near-perfect example of the left-wing’s elitist way of thinking about middle America, middle Americans and their way of life.
Now comes Orlando, and before you can say “Islamic radicalism” there is the media blaming guns and Christians for an attack committed by a radical Islamic. A radical Islamic who acted in service to his faith. Yet curiously - make that not so curiously - there was just a bit of a problem with the reporting this time around. The problem?
The stories out there about the gun involved in the shooting, not to mention the beliefs of Christians on gays, were wrong. Betraying what might be called a liberal media obsession with their own bitter clinging - to myths about guns and Christians.
Let’s take the religious myth first.
Over at the Federalist, kudos to Mollie Hemingway for nailing the New York Times specifically and journalists generally by headlining:
New York Times Claims ‘Romans’ Calls For ‘Execution Of Gays’
Religious illiteracy among journalists is reaching crisis levels.
Wrote Hemingway in part:
“Journalist Terry Mattingly wrote a great column back in 2006 noting the trouble many journalists have understanding the finer details of religion news. His column, “Reporters, crow’s ears and Karma Light nuns,” begins with an anecdote about how The New York Times covered the funeral of Pope John Paul II the prior year:
“The 84-year-old John Paul was laid out in Clementine Hall, dressed in white and red vestments, his head covered with a white bishop’s miter and propped up on three dark gold pillows,” wrote Ian Fisher of the New York Times. “Tucked under his left arm was the silver staff, called the crow’s ear, that he had carried in public.”
Get the joke? You see, that ornate silver shepherd’s crook is actually called a crosier (or “crozier”), not a “crow’s ear.”
Ah yes. The myth of the “crow’s ear.” Ya gotta love it. Hemingway rolled on, citing Times reporter Jeremy Peters for writing this in his Orlando coverage:
“A Republican congressman read his colleagues a Bible verse from Romans that calls for the execution of gays.
Come again? Wait, what? What? What in the world is he talking about? A “Bible verse” from “Romans” that calls for the “execution of gays”? Way to bury the lede there, Peters. You found something that no one else has ever found in two millenia! Though maybe you should go ahead and show your exegesis if you’re going to make such an amazing claim.
Instead he links to a Roll Call story that makes a similar claim. That one is written by one Jennifer Shutt and claims that “House Republicans at a conference meeting heard a Bible verse that calls for death for homosexuals” before a recent vote.
Another story by Shutt says it’s a verse “calling for the death of homosexuals.” The stories say that the passage “discusses what types of penalties the Bible says should be applied to those who are not heterosexual.”
If you have even a passing knowledge of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Christianity in general, heck, the Western canon, or Western Civilization itself, you are probably confused. If you have met a Christian in your life, ditto.”
Hemingway goes on - beautifully - at length. By all means read her in the original. But for our purposes here, I’ll condense. Says Hemingway:
“Also, maybe notice that the listing of sins indicts literally every single human on the planet. So if you’re thinking that Christianity calls for the execution of gays, you have to think, on the basis of the same passage, it calls for the execution of everyone. And if you’re thinking that, and you know anything at all about Christianity, maybe ponder whether everything you’ve written is embarrassingly wrong.
Instead, Shutt specifically said, falsely, that this passage “discusses what types of penalties the Bible says should be applied to those who are not heterosexual.” Wrong. Wrong. And wrong, wrong, wrong. It doesn’t discuss types of penalties. It doesn’t say penalties should be applied at all. And the passage applies to everyone.
…There’s no mention of whether Shutt’s cited translation is the one Allen used, but the “worthy of death” phrase (in my Bible, it’s “deserve to die”) is simply a restating of a basic teaching of Christianity. Let’s hop on over to Romans 6:23. (But read the whole chapter because it’s amazing.)
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This is the good news of Christianity! We’re all sinners who deserve death, but in Christ Jesus, we receive forgiveness and eternal life.”
There’s a last quote here from Romans:
…“Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”
Now who’s got standing to be self-righteous? Not a single one of us.”
Let’s stop here. The point? What Hemingway is illustrating here in vivid form using the actual passages from Romans is that the journalists involved have absolutely no idea what they are talking about - literally. They arrive at their reportage with an apparent total lack of religious literacy. And out of this, comes the myth they need for their Orlando stories: Christianity is about executing gays. When, of course, we’re not watching a Pope walk around with crow’s ears.
Let’s move from religion to that other favorite bad guy in the canon of bitter clinging liberal mythology: guns.
Over here at Mediaite reporter Alex Griswold headlines this:
WaPo, NY Times Blame Gun That Orlando Killer Never Actually Used
And the story? You guessed it. Both the two liberal media mainstays got the weapon used by the Orlando shooter totally wrong. Notes Griswold:
“The gun used in the Orlando shooting is becoming mass shooters’ weapon of choice,” wrote The Washington Post. “AR-15 Rifles Are Beloved, Reviled and a Common Element in Mass Shootings,” wrote The New York Times. Both served as profiles of the AR-15– America’s most popular rifle– and were premised on the fact that it was used in the Orlando shooting.
There’s only one problem: it wasn’t. Initial reports indicated that the killer used an “AR-15 type” of rifle, which both papers seemed to have assumed most have meant an AR-15. But the shooter actually used a Sig Sauer MCX, a semi-automatic rifle that outwardly resembles the AR-15 but otherwise has little in common.”
So what do we have here?
What we have is vivid evidence that liberal journalists are so gone from mainstream American culture that when called upon to report on issues involving religion or guns - the two issues that candidate Obama cited as being at the core of all those “bitter clingers” here in my home state of Pennsylvania - they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. What they have instead are their own set of liberal myths - Jesus wants gays executed, an AR-15 is used in a mass killing - when neither is true.
The real problem here is that liberals don’t care. These two small yet revealing stories tell another story then the ones they are individually crafted to tell. In the middle of the horrific news out of Orlando, a religious belief that really does believe in executing gays - a belief that is actually in practice in several Middle Eastern countries this very moment - is shielded in favor of myths about Christianity and guns.
In their own way, these stories about reporting on Romans and the AR-15 tells you everything you need to know about the real bitter clingers in America - both who they are and why they cling so bitterly.
