Its Shine the Light on the Religious Right Day

From our friends at Media Matters

Seems like the nutcase whack-a-mole overzealous right is targeting Jewish folks. Does this really surprise anyone anymore? Sigh...

In the March issue of American Family Association Journal, a publication of Donald E. Wildmon's right-wing evangelical activist group, the American Family Association (AFA), author Randall Murphree suggested that a Jewish upbringing leads to hatred of Christians, and by extension, a criminal lifestyle. Describing the background of a man who has a "ministry to the homeless," Murphree wrote in his article, "Homeless by Choice":

The Athens, Ohio, man grew up in a Jewish home and developed a hostile attitude toward Christ. As a teenager, he used drugs, sold drugs and accumulated quite a juvenile crime record. But after a high school friend persistently witnessed to him, Keith accepted Christ during his junior year in high school.

Murphree offered no explanation for the man's "hostile attitude toward Christ" other than his Jewish upbringing. Nor did he explain the man's drug use, drug dealing, and law-breaking in any way except in the context of his hostility toward Christ. Thus, Murphree linked Judaism to criminality.

The AFA Journal has long served as a platform for anti-Semitic theories and innuendo. For instance, Wildmon warned of Jewish control over popular culture, an old anti-Semitic canard, in a January 1989 article, "What Hollywood Believes and Wants." "The television elite are highly secular," Wildmon wrote. "The majority (59 percent) in the Jewish faith." In a separate article in the same issue, titled "Anti-Semitism Called a Serious Problem," Wildmon, a longtime opponent of gay rights, pointedly remarked that "Jews favor homosexual rights more than other Americans."

Wildmon has been denounced by Jewish organizations including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress. In 1994, Wildmon was the subject of a positive feature in "The Spotlight," a journal published by the virulently anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby.

He has appeared on numerous mainstream news programs, including ABC's Good Morning America and Nightline, NBC's The Today Show and Meet the Press, and CNN's Crossfire. The AFA's website currently claims a membership of 2,248,910.