Fox News Promotes Hatred

A survivor of the recent church shooting in Knoxville, Tennessee, the Reverend Gordon Gibson, doesn't blame the conservative cultural mores of the South for the hate-motivated rampage at his church last month.Instead, citing reports that the alleged gunman had annotated copies of books by conservative pundits Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, he blames Fox News, where both have television shows. Gibson, a longtime Unitarian church member and pastor, understands the tragedy as one of national, not local, significance. The alleged shooter, he said, tapped into a national intolerance broadcast on the popular news programs as an outlet for his personal frustrations. The Unitarian Universalist Church teaches a decidedly progressive theology. The Knoxville church welcomes LGBTs and the local PFLAG chapter meets there.But tragedy struck when two people were killed and seven were injured when Jim Adkisson, 58, allegedly opened fire on the Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville on Sunday, July 27. After his arrest, Adkisson led investigators to a four-page letter in his car that outlined his hatred of liberals and singled out gays in particular, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. Fox News has yet to mention the link between their pundits and the church killings, Gibson said in an August 1 interview with the Bay Area Reporter. Gibson is staying in San Francisco this month, filling in for vacationing pastor Greg Stewart at First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco."If one goes to Fox News [Web site] and enters the shooter's name, one finds no posting," Gibson said. "Fox News is not owning that two of their folks contributed to this person's paranoia."