In the post - 9/11 cultural climate, is insulting nonbelief becoming a media past time? Bill Buckley, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly carry their share of blame for inaccurate reporting and rude behavior...

It was hard for Ron Barrier to get in a few words, a cogent remark, a complete sentence.

   Barrier, Communications Director for American Atheists, was making another Fox News Channel appearance last Monday, December 17, on the popular Hannity & Colmes show. The topic was supposed to be the Pledge of Allegiance and the posting of religious mottoes such as "In God We Trust" in the nation's public school classrooms. Within about a minute of being introduced, though, the "interview" with Barrier quickly turned into a one-sided attack, gratis the aggressive and overbearing Sean Hannity.

   It's not the only example of seasonal animus against nonbelief in the media, especially in the post September 11 climate. Popular columnist and television talk show host Bill O'Reilly excoriated Atheists in his December 25 editorial published in the New York Post, titled "Santa Is Appalled." Holiday "grinches" were taking the air out of festive Christmas celebrations, O'Reilly lamented, "and it's my job to chase them down and put snow down their backs." Several examples followed, such as how in Seattle a county executive cautioned government employees to be "religion neutral" at this time of year. O'Reilly also lamented a Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association policy of banning religious ornaments from the state "holiday tree -- a perfectly reasonable action. So was another O'Reilly "No Spin Zone" column example, where employees were prohibited from handing out Christmas cards on public school campuses -- a clear and proper effort to check exploitation of the holiday by zealous prayer warriors who insist that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season."

   There were other cases, too, where O'Reilly, who hosts the popular and controversial "O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News, sallied forth to attack the bug-a-boos of secularism and constitutional sensibilities at Christmas. He noted that Santa Claus was banned by the Kensington, Maryland town council "because of two complaints that ol' Saint Nick would offend some citizens at a tree lighting ceremony." That's only part of the whole story, of course. The Baltimore Sun and the on-line Sun Spot Net both carried news about this; and in fact the squabble over Santa began back in October when local Jewish residents insisted that a Hanukkah menorah be included in the town's holiday display. Town solons decided to avoid any religious controversy, and tried (perhaps clumsily) to turn the tree lighting ceremony sans Santa into a patriotic celebration.

   All of this was cited by O'Reilly as being "completely insane," and part of "A well-organized campaign to destroy tradition and replace it with the bland philosophy that nothing is any good unless it includes everybody." He continued his Christmas rant -- which also appeared on the worldnetdaily.com web site -- asserting that Christmas is a federal holiday, the word "Christmas" is "legal in every way," and that it exists "because of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, a man who changed the course of Western civilization."

   Santa-banning bureaucrats turn out to be second-tier grinches on O'Reilly's list, though. "Now, this might offend some atheists out there, but so what?" he asks. "The arrogance of a person who dismisses the thought of a higher power offends me," added O'Reilly. "But in our free society, thought is protected... And so is Christmas. The secularists who would destroy this joyous tradition are destructive fascists who seek to control the free flow of expression..."

   New York Atheists head Josh Karpf was taken back by O'Reilly's remarks, and urged a barrage of letters against the attacks on secularism and non-belief. One letter so far has made it into the New York Post, from Dennis Middlebrooks.

   "So, talk-show host Bill O'Reilly is offended by 'the arrogance of a person who dismisses the thought of a higher power,' " writes Middlebrooks. "As a nonbeliever I am offended by right-wing blowhards like O'Reilly who persist in slandering the 30 million Americans who reject a belief in a deity.

   "It was not atheists who flew hijacked airliners into the Twin towers and Pentagon, Mr. O'Reilly. It was a group of religious men whose belief in a higher power motivated them to carry out their dastardly deeds."

   Meanwhile, Ron Barrier's appearance on Hannity & Colmes remains a hi-jacked interview, gratis "host" Sean Hannity. Based on a transcript at the Fox News web site, beginning with the paragraph preceding Barrier's first remarks, and ending with the closing line uttered by Alan Colmes, Mr. Barrier managed to utter 206 words. Colmes used 121 words, most of them at the beginning of the interview where he touched on the origin of the "God" references found in the Pledge of Allegiance. Sean Hannity -- "known for his provocative style," according to Fox publicists -- began his portion of the interview asking "Hey, Ron, is America a great country?"

   The transcript reflects that in comparison to Barrier's 206 words as the "guest" on the program, and Colmes' 121, Hannity managed to speak 255 words, few of them in question form. He did ask: "You hold out no possibility that there's a god?"

   "Well, that's not the issue, Sean," Barrier replied.

   Many watching the program were shocked at Hannity's "attack interview," and efforts to fluster Mr. Barrier.

   "When I walked out of the studio," Barrier later told AANEWS, "my impression was that Hannity didn't have any argument against our position so he opted to change the topic rather than stick to it. He really couldn't debunk anything that Allan Colmes and I were talking about."

   Still, said Barrier, "We shook hands and wished each other a happy holiday."

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