It's become demonstratably obvious that Franklin Graham is using his father's good name to become a water-carrier for the religious right. After all, during the campaign season, he questioned whether President Obama really was a Christian and questioned the faith of those born-agains who supported his reelection. After the election, Graham fis suggested that God was angry enough at us for giving Obama another term that he just might hurl the nation over the fiscal cliff.
As bat-guano loony as those statements were, they pale in comparison to what he said yesterday on American Family Radio's AFA Today. Graham fils used the occasion to claim the Sandy Hook shooting was due in part to God being taken out of our schools. See it for yourself (h/t to Right Wing Watch).
Graham fils thus added his voice to those of Mike Huckabee, Bryan Fischer and numerous others.
To put it mildly, this is disappointing. Graham sounded a laudable tone immediately after the shooting, calling for the nation to embrace Newtown with love and prayers. But after yesterday, I have to wonder if this was only for public consumption, while his latest screed was for the true believers. After all, Graham seemed to walk back his cheap shot about Obama's faith in a CNN interview, only to tell the true believers on American Family Radio only a day later that he doubted whether a true Christian could vote for Obama.
There can be no sugarcoating it--Franklin Graham has officially gone off the deep end. And as a result, this reality-based charismatic Christian is going to have to change a button on his radio. One of my favorite Christian music stations was WMIT in Asheville, whose signal atop Clingman's Peak reaches my home in Charlotte. However, ever since Graham fils started flirting with birtherism early in the campaign cycle, I'd been boycotting the station. Well, after this piece of callous drivel, that boycott is now permanent as long as Graham fils is at the helm. I just fired off an email to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association--if you feel the same way, click here to drop them a line--but please, be civil.
My email is reproduced below.
I was outraged to learn that Franklin Graham suggested that the Sandy Hook shooting was caused by mandatory prayer being abolished in the public schools. These remarks were unbelievably callous and inappropriate. I wonder if Reverend Graham would have dared to say such things to a parent who lost a child in that shooting.
The last thing these parents need right now is to be preached at. They need to be loved on and to know the nation stands with them. I thought that of all organizations, the BGEA would understand this. Judging by Reverend Graham's comments, apparently I was mistaken.
I had been a loyal listener of 106.9 the Light. But after these comments, as long as Franklin Graham is president of the BGEA, I will never listen to that station. Reverend Graham is going down a path of right-wing extremism that his father would have never approved of. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
One can only hope that Graham
fils is more willing to answer whether he would tell the victims' parents that they died because kids weren't forced to pray.