By KATE JOHNSON
Recently, former White House staffer Omarosa Manigualt, on the reality TV show “Celebrity Big Brother,” commented on Vice President Mike Pence’s faith.
“As bad as you think Trump is, you would be worried about Pence . . . everyone that is wishing for impeachment might want to reconsider their life . . . I am Christian, I love Jesus, but he thinks Jesus tells him to say things.”
On ABC’s “The View,” Joy Behar and fellow panelists discussed Manigault’s comment. “It’s one thing to talk to Jesus. It’s another thing when Jesus talks to you. That’s called mental illness, if I’m not correct, hearing voices.”
“The View” member, Sunny Hostin, said, “I’m Catholic, I’m a faithful person, but I don’t know that I want my vice president speaking in tongues.”
Behar continued to mock the vice president. “My question is, can he talk to Mary Magdalene without his wife in the room?”
Joy Behar on ABC’s “The View” (screengrab from YouTube)
In response to the comments on “The View,” Pence said during an interview with Axios journalist Mike Allen, “I actually heard that ABC has a program that compared my Christianity to mental illness. And I’d like to laugh about it, but I really can’t . . . It’s just wrong.”
Pence told Allen, “And it’s an insult not to me, but to the vast majority of the American people who, like me, cherish their faith. My Christianity is the most important thing in my life.”
CBN covered the story in favor of Pence and supported the vice president’s stand against the comments made on “The View.”
As a Christian, upon reading the quotes made on national TV mocking the vice president’s Christian faith, I was deeply offended.
Regardless of your politics, to make fun of someone’s religion, especially on national TV, in such an insensitive way is completely inappropriate.
“But I just think it demonstrates just how out of touch some in the mainstream media are with the faith and values of the American people that you could have a major network like ABC permit a forum for invective against religion like that,” said Pence on Axios. “And I call them out on it. Not because of what was said about me. But it’s just simply wrong for ABC to have a television program that expresses that kind of religious intolerance.”
FOX News provided more coverage of the conversation that was held on “The View” by explaining that the panelists’ conversation was surrounding the idea of Pence, an evangelical Christian, becoming the new president and what that would entail.
“He’s not very popular at all,” Hostin said. “I think when you have a Mike Pence who now sort of puts this religious veneer on things and calls people ‘values voters,’ I think we’re in a dangerous situation.”
FOX News, which is typically criticized for conservative biased, did provide more well-rounded coverage of the story than CBN or the Christian Post. Although CBN, the Christian Post, ABC, and Fox News cater to niche audiences, Fox News presented a broader perspective on the incident.
The FOX article mentioned the political debate unlike CBN, which only mentions the attack on Christian values.
In the FOX News article, journalist Brian Flood wrote, “Behar said hearing voices is a ‘mental illness’ before Sherri Shepard offered a limited defense of Pence.”
“As a Christian, that’s just par for the course,” Shepard said “You talk to Jesus, Jesus talks back. What concerns me is, how long is the conversation with Jesus?”