Actions speak louder than words. At NBC, those actions meant removing the words “under God” from the “Pledge of Allegiance” last weekend. Under God? Clearly, NBC thinks it is over God. Thankfully, the rest of America doesn’t agree.
As a result, NBC (perhaps it should now stand for "No Believers [especially] Christians") has had to issue two apologies, the second no better than the first. The offending U.S. Open segment included children reciting nearly all of the pledge, interspersed with patriotic images. Afterward, Dan Hicks said, during the broadcast of the golfing action that “regrettably, a portion of the Pledge of Allegiance that was in that feature was edited out. It was not done to upset anyone and we’d like to apologize to those of you who were offended by it.”
NBC employees commit an act of religious bigotry designed to offend people of faith. But that’s just editing. No, it was done twice. The first time three words were removed. The second time five. Both times, “under God” was cut out by the anti-religious lefty loons of NBC.
NBC's pathetic apology just compounded the offense and they tried a second apology. “Chris McCloskey, vice president for NBCUniversal Sports and Olympics, said in a released statement, according to CNN: "We are aware of the distress this has caused many of our viewers and are taking the issue very seriously.” Notice it didn’t cause anyone at CNN “distress.” “Unfortunately, when producing the piece – which was intended to capitalize on the patriotism of having our national championship played in our nation's capital - a decision was made by a small group of people to edit portions of the Pledge of Allegiance.” He ended by calling it a “bad decision.”
On Monday, NBC downplayed its own PR disaster by comparing it with an Obama impersonator who told “racially tinged jokes,” the on-air battle between Fox News anchor Chris Wallace and liberal comedian Jon Stewart and a comment by Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The story, tagged “BAD DECISIONS,” finally had NBC’s Mike Taibbi admitting the network “edited out, twice in the segment, the words ‘under God.’” But Taibbi tried to run cover for his own network, linking the pledge controversy to culture wars. “Right-left, red-blue, it seems our cultural divide is as divided as ever.” Except on the pledge, which has one authorized version.
So a small, faith-hating cabal of liberal idiots cuts God out of the “Pledge of Allegiance” and NBC is doing what exactly? Exactly nothing.
That’s not good enough. The Media Research Center will be sending letters to leaders of the top Christian denominations in the country, calling on them to hold NBC’s feet to the fire and demand that the network fire those responsible. We are urging religious leaders to educate their congregations to NBC's attack on faith and join us in publicly denouncing the network.
The Media Research Center has shown for 24 years the liberal bias in the news media. Author Ben Shapiro has proven Hollywood is deliberately biased against conservatives in his new book “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV.” Now NBC has proven viewers can’t even trust the sports they watch on TV.
Americans recite the “Pledge of Allegiance” as a sign of dedication and commitment – to show their faith in both God and country. Those dedicated to the values that made America great should make another pledge, one to stop watching NBC and stop patronizing its advertisers until the network fires the “small group of people” involved in this attack on people of faith.
Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.