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Fox Sports fires commentator Craig James for expressing disapproval of homosexuality

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Mysterious Chris S. posted this article by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

Excerpt:

As a former quarterback, Craig James isn’t used to being on the defensive. But unfortunately, that’s exactly where Fox Sports is putting him in a story that should rock the football world. The retired Pro-Bowler became the latest face of the war on religious liberty, when — after one day on the job — Fox Sports gave James the boot for his conservative views on marriage. And here’s the kicker: he made the comments, not at the sports desk, but during last year’s Senate campaign!

Apart from being a popular analyst, Craig also had political aspirations — aspirations he followed to Texas in an unsuccessful bid against Ted Cruz during the primary. In the course of the campaign, Craig was asked — as all candidates are — about his views on marriage and sexuality. James’s opinion happens to coincide with the research, which is that no one is born gay. And, as an orthodox Christian, he didn’t shy away from the eternal consequences of this sin or any other. “…[T]hey are going to have to answer to the Lord for their actions,” he said before pledging not to support same-sex unions.

According to Sports Illustrated, the regional affiliate of Fox hired Craig without involving upper management. “Fox Sports executives were not happy with the hire by the regional network,” sources explain. High level executives felt he hadn’t been properly vetted (or, properly excluded, depending on how you look at it). When the news broke, a Fox Sports spokesman tried to explain away the network’s religious profiling. “We just asked ourselves how Craig’s statements would play in our human resources department. He couldn’t say those things here.”

First off, Craig didn’t say them there — or anywhere in his commentating capacity. He stated his position as a candidate for public office — in response to legitimate constituent questions. To suggest that having an opinion on cultural issues disqualifies you from breaking down football plays is outrageous — especially when that opinion is shared by the majority of Americans! Is the grip of religious hostility so tight that Americans can’t even have an open debate for fear it’ll cost them their jobs?

Dr. Angela McCaskill, Jerry Buell, Julea Ward, Damian Goddard, Senior Master Sergeant Phillip Monk, Crystal Dixon, and Air National Guardsman Layne Wilson certainly think so. To a man, they were all suspended, fired, or sued by their employers for their views on marriage — whether or not they expressed them at work! Like them, Craig James’s ousting had nothing to do with his job performance — and everything to do with this new climate of Christian persecution.

From the military to Fox Sports to city halls like San Antonio’s, the overwhelming message seems to be that when it comes to the public arena, conservative Christians need not apply. Let the network know what a disappointment their political correctness is by contacting Fox Sports and protesting Craig James’s dismissal.

By the way, I never miss the FRC podcasts and I mentioned both their daily and weekend podcast feeds in my recent post about my favorite podcasts. I start my day every morning with the Al Mohler Daily Briefing and the Family Research Council Daily Podcast during my morning commute. Take a look at my podcast post and see if there are any shows that you didn’t know about. There are good podcasts in there on fiscal issues, foreign policy issues, social issues and lots of science and Christian apologetics, too.

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News

How governor Rick Scott created jobs and eliminated a $3.5 billion debt in Florida

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This post at A View From The Right had the full transcript of the Florida governor’s recent speech at the recent “Defending the American Dream Summit”. I thought it was interesting to see what he was doing, since I have sort of been neglecting him and concentrating my attention on other Republican governors like Scott Walker, John Kasich, Bobby Jindal and Mike Pence.

He inherited a bad situation from his predecessor:

In 2010, our state was in a free fall. We had lost more than 800,000 jobs during the four years before I took office. Our real estate market had collapsed. Our state debt had grown by about a billion dollars a year for two decades. And, thousands of government regulations were killing job creation.

[…]DC’s spending addiction had spread to Florida. Hard decisions had been delayed and replaced with the shortsighted policies of more debt and more spending. Florida was in a hole, and for about four years the state just kept digging.

When I took office, the bill had come due.

It was time to stop digging and climb out of the hole. We knew the only way out was to create jobs. Taxes are primarily paid by successful companies and people with jobs. In Florida, it was time to make the hard decisions to: Right-size government. Reduce spending. And pay down debt.

Here’s some of what the Scott administration has done:

I took office with a projected $3.6 billion budget gap. As we made the hard decisions to live within our means during my first year in office, there was plenty of criticism to go around. We streamlined services and targeted reforms to help businesses compete. But, we heard from the critics when we turned down stimulus funds and balanced the budget. They said, federal money was “free.” I was told to grab all the free federal money I could.

As part of our effort to reduce fraud and help families, we also passed legislation requiring drug testing for welfare recipients. The critics were mad. They said that drug testing someone applying for welfare was a violation of their rights. I disagree. Welfare is designed to support children, and parents receiving government assistance should be drug free. Illegal drug use has no place in any family. Unfortunately, this reform is still stuck in the courts. But, we will keep fighting.

To further reduce government waste, we reformed our unemployment assistance program. Federal unemployment money was pouring out of DC, but there wasn’t enough oversight in place to limit waste and abuse. We passed a law to require people on unemployment to show they were actively seeking a job every week.

And more:

I have now been in office for more than two years and we are beginning to see the results of conservative, pro-growth solutions in Florida:

*  We have turned around a four-year record of 800,000 lost jobs before I took office, and the private sector in Florida has now created nearly 370,000 jobs over the last 2 1/2 years.

*  Our unemployment rate has dropped below the national average, and Florida’s rate has had the second biggest improvement in the country.

*  We have paid off $3.5 billion in state debt.

*  We have downsized our state government workforce to the lowest level in the history of Florida. Why? Because the private sector is the engine to job creation -– not government.

*  We have eliminated more than 2,600 state regulations on job creators.

*  We paid back $3.5 billion in federal loans for re-employment assistance.

*  And, we did all this while also cutting taxes five times in three years, including: The elimination of the sales tax on manufacturing equipment to help jump-start manufacturing investment. Continuing to roll back the business tax, so that today around 70 percent of our businesses no longer pay it. And, we cut property taxes for homeowners and businesses.

[…]*  After right-sizing government and cutting taxes, this year, we had our first budget surplus in six years. But, it gets better.

*  Just a few weeks ago, our State Revenue Estimating Conference announced that the general revenue now forecasted for 2014-2015 in Florida will be the highest ever. The highest ever.

How are they doing it? With big government spending on “stimulus” programs? No:

Working with the Florida Legislature, we have cut taxes year after year, even while forcing government to live within its means. This year, we are committed to returning even more money to the hard-working Florida families who earn it. I look forward to working with our friends in the Florida Legislature to make these tax cuts a reality.

They are cutting government spending and returning the taxes to the taxpayers. This is a good state to be in now, especially if you want to run your own business. What I liked about the speech is that he is passionate about pro-growth policies. While others seemed to be ashamed of low taxes and small government, Governor Scott is producing results and linking those good results to his conservative policies. I think that the next time we have an election, it should be about choosing the person who has proven that they know how to run an economy. Governor Scott should be in the mix. The best stimulus program is a job, and we should be picking people who have proven that they know how to create jobs.

News

Conservative Christian Tony Abbott wins majority in Australia

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Tony Abbott, future Prime Minister of Australia
Tony Abbott, future Prime Minister of Australia

Timothy Stanley of the UK Telegraph reports that Australia has elected a Stephen Harper of their own.

Excerpt:

Tony Abbott has won the Australian election – a blow not only to the Australian Labor Party but to Left-wingers everywhere who presumed that he was too “Neanderthal” to win. Well, us Neanderthals will be having a barbie tonight and sculling some beers to celebrate. “Good on yer, mate!”

Abbott won for two reasons. First, the Australian Labor Party is going through a long-term identity crisis. The ALP was once the party of the working man (and Sheila) but in recent years it’s succumbed to the worst aspects of factional politics, becoming a magnet for liberal pressure groups desperate for their slice of the taxpayers’ pie. The party contained plenty of factions in the past but it always managed to steer a sensible middle course between them – so while it was the ALP in the 1970s that established Australia as an outward-looking, Pacific power it was also the ALP in the 1980s that recognised the need for economic reform and rejected protectionism. It’s the party of both Gough Whitlam and Les Patterson.

However, in recent years the Left gained an ascendance over the Right that undid that delicate balance. Under Gillard and Rudd, the ALP “bought” off Australia’s metropolitan elites by embracing issues like gay marriage and the green agenda – the latter threatening the livelihoods of ordinary Australians trying to drill, mine and log their way through the global recession. It invested in silly, expensive projects that turned into giveaways to client companies and unions. And it displayed all of its internal bickering in public, reducing national politics to student union shenanigans. The ALP is now severed from the base that it once represented so well, leaving the ordinary blokes and blokesses looking around for something new.

[…]On the quiet, Abbott has picked up some of the politics that the ALP abandoned. He is said to be a devotee of BA Santamaria, the Catholic thinker who tried to build a Christian Democratic movement that combined social justice and social conservatism. Abbott’s conservatism is plain to see: he rejects doctrinaire environmentalism and favours a far freer and competitive market than the ALP’s clients would ever tolerate. But he also has Santamaria’s concern for social justice: Abbott wants to introduce a scheme that would pay for parental leave to encourage mothers and fathers not only to spend more time with their children but to have more of them, too. Dig beneath that hard man image and you’ll find a politician who is considerably softer and complex. Whereas some Western conservatives seem to be entirely motivated by the desire to win (Romney, Cameron), Abbott has a philosophy and – almost unique in our materialist age – a theology.

This puts him in the George W Bush, Stephen Harper compassionate conservative tradition – the tradition that tends to attract the most votes. For while British Tories might look at Abbott’s politics and language and sneer, they would do well to remember this important distinction. Tony Abbott wins elections; David Cameron has yet to do even that.

Congratulations, Conservative Coalition!

My previous post on Tony Abbott is here, if you want to know more about his policies.