Tavis Smiley's Outrage
PBS station managers made a big push last year to drive any trace of
"sectarian" Christianity out of the taxpayer-funded broadcasting
system, banning any church services or religious lectures that appeared
on a handful of stations. They ultimately compromised and banned any new church programming.
But on at least one program, PBS sounds like it's declaring war on
Christianity, including smears on Christianity that are not based on
reality.
If that sounds shocking, imagine what the average
Christian PBS viewer might have thought as he watched Tavis Smiley's
weeknight talk show on May 25. The guest was ex-Muslim and atheist
author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, there to promote her latest book, "Nomad."
Smiley claims to be a Christian, but he attacked Ms. Ali for
"idealizing Christianity" and recklessly turning people away from
Islam.
Right out of the box, Smiley was out to make a point.
"You say unapologetically and rather frankly that your mission here is
to inform the West about the danger of Islam," he began. "What danger
do we need to be made aware of?"
What? Did Tavis Smiley somehow sleep through 9/11? Is PBS keeping
him locked in a closet where he remains unaware of the ongoing
terrorist attacks on Americans - successful and unsuccessful - made by
Islamic radicals? When Ali brought up the deaths of 13 at Fort Hood and
the failed Times Square bomber, Smiley unloaded a literally
unbelievable statement: "But Christians do that every single day in this country." [Audio available here.]
Ali
replied: "Do they blow people up?" Smiley: "Yes. Oh, Christians, every
day, people walk into post offices, they walk into schools, that's what
Columbine is - I could do this all day long."
Tavis Smiley is
not only wrong, he's perversely wrong. The boys who shot up Columbine
High School were not Christians, they were just violent psychopaths
who, among other evils, mocked students who cried out for God to save
them. There aren't Christians walking into post offices or schools
every single day in America and blowing people up. Anyone in charge of
journalistic integrity at PBS should see this as a blazing inaccuracy,
in addition to a religious smear. Men this dishonest should be kept
from microphones, not hired to speak into them. 
But
Smiley kept going, insisting Christians were far worse than Muslim
terrorists: "There are so many more examples of Christians - and I
happen to be a Christian. That's back to this notion of your idealizing
Christianity in my mind, to my read. There are so many more examples,
Ayaan, of Christians who do that than you could ever give me examples
of Muslims who have done that inside this country, where you live and
work."
Who would have thought that anyone would outdo Rosie
O'Donnell, who insisted radical Christianity was "just as threatening"
as radical Islam?
Ali calmly explained that Christians are far
more tolerant. They take abuse on television programs without
threatening to blow up Comedy Central offices or promise Daniel
Pearl-style decapitations for executives. She acknowledged "not all
Muslims are terrorists, we must emphasize that, but almost all
terrorist activities that take place today in our time are done and
justified in the name of Islam."
This caused another burst of
illogic from Smiley, who compared the Fort Hood attack to the Tea Party
activists protesting ObamaCare on Capitol Hill. "There are folk in the
Tea Party, for example, every day who are being recently arrested for
making threats against elected officials, for calling people 'nigger'
as they walk into Capitol Hill, for spitting on people."
Put
aside the thoroughly unproven accusations, now that Rep. Emanuel
Cleaver has backed off the story of conservative spitters, and there is
no audio, or corroboration of the accusation of N-words being thrown.
Had those events actually happened, would they in any way have been
comparable to murder?
PBS has an ombudsman now to receive
public complaints. Michael Getler should hear from across the country,
from Christians and non-Christians alike, that Tavis Smiley must
provide a retraction and an apology for his scurrilous and bigoted
remarks against Christians and the billions that practice that faith.
PBS stations across the country accept millions in funding from
good-hearted Christian taxpayers who don't deserve to see allegedly
"public" broadcasting attacking their integrity.
Seventy-seven percent of Americans call themselves Christian.
People
in public broadcasting boast in their pledge drives and their
direct-mail fundraising letters and in their congressional testimony
that they are an oasis of civility and intelligent discourse. But they
host, and help fund, the unintelligent, inaccurate garbage coming out
of the mouth of Tavis Smiley. This trash belongs in the dumpster.
