Most people by now have probably heard about Bob Jones III's letter to Bush where he states that the country has gotten an undeserved "reprieve" from neo-paganism and goes on to assert that liberals "hate Jesus". It wouldn't be that hard to add a list of outrageous quotes from leaders of the Christian right such as Pat Robertson's famous post-9/11 assertion that God allowed terrorists to attack the US because of secular humanists, feminists and gays. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The leaders of the Christian Right are engaging (on a near routine basis) in constant hate speech (and no, I am not calling for censorship).
What is amazing is how this has now become nearly acceptable. When asked about his reactions to this letter this morning, Senator John McCain politely indicated his disagreement and proceeded to talk about the uneasiness of Americans with the amount of sex in the media. Later, on another show, Pat Buchanan repeated the old saw about how liberal judges have started a "culture war" by banning prayer and the 10 commandments in school.
In both cases these assertions needed to be challenged. There should be at this point in time a public and near universal call for President Bush to acknowledge that liberals do not hate Jesus and to concede that there are actually some liberals who regularly attend church and worship Jesus. When far right media pundits like Buchanan start going off about how liberal activist judges started the culture war, someone needs to correct this and point out that prayer is not banned in public schools, but "coerced" prayer is banned. Why has it become acceptable for the Christian right to engage in this type of speech?