I always knew I didn’t like Sean Hannity…
…and now I have a reason to boycott him.
This guy has always bugged me. I mean, even when I’ve agreed with him, the way he has presented topics and the strategies he used to debate people always made my skin crawl. Heck, just the way his voice sounds bugs me.
But now he’s gone too far:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f50fD5elrcg&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emarkshea%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F
Before I go on, I should state that I think the priest was holding Hannity to too high a standard that I doubt he’d hold others too. I don’t think he should deny communion to Hannity. He could have been more charitable.
But that aside, I’ve lost what little respect I had for Hannity. What kind of a response is it to a priest questioning how one is presenting the faith to the public to instead acuse him, without cause, of effectively being an accomplice to the priestly scandal? That’s just ridiculous. It’s doubly ridiculous coming from a guy who spent half the interview asking the priest if he knew anything about him when clearly Hannity knew nothing about the priest’s work (since the priest was quickly able to reference his website and the work he’s done in regards to the priestly scandal). But even if this priest had done no work in that area, it’s still not a reasonable response.
In addition his “judge not” and “that’s in the good book” crap was just as ridiculous. First of all, I’m absolutely sure Hannity has criticized more than one liberal politician for giving that same deflection. More to the point, there are more than a few references in scripture that speak to the responsibility the Church has to not only generally proclaim the Truth but to call individuals out when they are failing. In other words, it’s part of a priest’s job to call out sin as sin.
Finally, it’s not an either or choice for birth control or abortion. There are the options of giving birth or obstaining from sex to prevent conception. In fact, not only is it not an either or choice, it’s quite the opposite, one leads to the other, as the priest pointed out. Both are interfering with God’s Will. Both lead to a disrespect for life. Once we’re willing to play God with birth control, when our ability to play God falls short, we find new ways to try and play God through abortion. It’s not a coincidence that abortion was legalized less than a generation after birth-control use became the norm. And it’s not as like both were discovered recently. We’ve had the medical technology to do both since the times of the Greek empire.
Or said another way, as a favorite blogger of mine says “If bringing babies into the world is God’s way of saying the human race should continue, birth control is man’s way of saying it should end.”
So, I hearby proclaim that I will change the channel or station whenever I hear Hannity’s voice until he issues a humbly apology for that interview and shows some indication that he is going to take the leaders of the faith he claims to belong to more seriously.