Posted on 10/04/2007 4:19:09 PM PDT by wagglebee
When's the last time your local Christian youth group stoned somebody to death?
Hollywood likes to claim their programming simply reflects reality, but the latest episode of Cold Case was an exercise in bigoted, Christophobic fantasy.
In the September 30 episode of the CBS forensics show, the devoutly religious teens in an abstinence club turn out to be sexually active hypocrites who murder one of their own members - by stoning her, as the Bible teaches - to keep their sins secret. Their youth pastor encourages one girl to describe her impure dreams to him, and masturbates while listening.
In a ham-handed attempt to influence this fall's Congressional debate on abstinence education programs, the show also depicts abstinence-only education as useless, if not actively harmful.
The episode centers on the unsolved 1998 murder of Carrie Swett, a promiscuous 15-year-old girl. New clues lead the detectives in the Philadelphia homicide unit to reopen the case.
Shortly before her death Carrie joins Hearts Wait, an abstinence club whose members are not actually abstinent. The biggest hypocrite of all is Tina, the president and most outspoken Christian in the club. By portraying the group's leader so unsympathetically, CBS uses the same device employed in the anti-Christian Mandy Moore movie Saved.
One couple in the group, Laurie and Manny, are said to "pretend they were Mary and Joseph" but are actually having sex. Another young man, Phil, is terrified he might be a homosexual.
Worst of all is the portrayal of Nathan, the youth pastor overseeing the club. When Tina tells him about impure dreams she's having about him, he encourages her to "confess" them - to him. Nathan encourages her to turn her back to make it easier for her to talk, but viewers learn (as does Carrie) that he does this so he can pleasure himself.
Tina describes a purity ring ceremony in which she went to Nathan's office alone, after hours, and took the vow to remain pure in front of only him and God. This description injects a furtive, sinister aspect to a movement that is anything but.
Carrie's mother ominously tells detectives that "someone or something was making her change," implying that Carrie was hanging out with a bad crowd before she was murdered. The next scene shows Carrie telling her mother, just before she leaves to meet with Tina, that she wants new, modest clothes because she doesn't want to appear sexy any more.
When Carrie finds out about Tina and the youth pastor and encourages her to stop meeting alone with him, Tina replied with "you're just some slut with a whore for a mother," portraying Christians as judgmental and downright rude. Carrie also promotes a little Hollywood morality, telling Phil, Laurie and Manny there isn't anything wrong with their feelings or actions.
The "good Christian" kids respond by calling her "dirty," "whore," "slut" and "b****" before literally stoning her to death. Tina justifies the murder by paraphrasing the King James Version of Deuteronomy 22:21: "the whore should be stoned so thou shalt put evil away among you."
Apparently Hollywood is taking note that Congress is currently debating abstinence funding. Weighing in on public policy, CBS takes some gratuitous slaps at abstinence-only education. The opening scene features a high school "health" teacher telling her class "Now if school policy allowed me to do so, I would tell you how these methods of birth control can be used and what they do. But I cannot. I would be fired."
In another scene, Laurie (a product of abstinence-only education) asks Carrie how to tell whether she's pregnant. The dialogue implies that abstinence programs leave teenagers ignorant of all things sexual.
Just another night of prime time "entertainment" programming, courtesy of CBS. Welcome to the fall TV season.
Freepmail wagglebee or little jeremiah to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.
FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
CBS stands for Concentrated Bovine $hit
Cold Case has a big time Lib agenda
This episode, which I watched, was disgusting. And it was nothing by anti-life, anti-Christian propaganda!
The only thing I’ve watched on CBS in years is sports.
I often hear FReepers wonder aloud about what goes on in a Lib’s mind. IMO, all one has to do is watch the shows they create and run on the tube.
Either stop torturing yourself by watching it, or stop torturing us by complaining about it.
Stand up. Walk to the TV. Kick it off the stand into a septic tank. There. Now don't you feel better?
Also, Cold Case is a boring show.
Yes, but now you owe me $2500 for a new septic tank!
I haven't seen much of Roma Downey, the other cast members from the show, or its even its spin-off "Promised Land"
Makes you wonder what happened.
Increasingly as I view the popular culture here, from television to movies to dress, language and the popularized youth morality, I fell I have outlived my time and no longer belong here.
Absolutely right on, crazyshrink. They witness to their own condition by their attitudes toward those with whom they disagree and the values they project on their enemies.
These are people whose hearts are filled with rage. They are, to a person, deeply sociopathic.
Funny, the only group that stones girls for immorality today is Muslim.
Well, Christians don’t behead and murder Hollywood writers after all so they are easy game
~for the craven writers.
SeeBS - The Communist Broadcasting System.
When I saw a promo for this past Sunday's episode, I knew the show was up to its old tricks again, and taped it (only catching the last twenty minutes due to a VCR set-up error). It was worse than I could have imagined. These people have absolutely no sense of shame.
As Laura Ingraham has been pointing out lately, "The 'turn it off' defense is disingenous and pathetic and should stop no one from demanding more from our entertainment, media, and advertising industries..."
A small price to redeem your soul.
No, what's "disingenuous and pathetic" is Laura's rejection of that solution. She claims we should live in a society that does not pander to the lowest common denominator. She's right. And the way to halt that is to make it unprofitable to pander to the lowest common denominator. If the audience for such claptrap shrinks to zero, the claptrap will cease to exist. You vote with your eyes and your wallet.
She also rejects "turn it off" because the liberals don't buy that line with Don Imus and Rush Limbaugh. Well, since when have we ever elevated to the Left's whiny philosophy to a position worth emulating?
No, I stand by my original response: don't just turn it off, burn it. Throw it away. Bury it and salt the earth over its grave. There is not a thing -- repeat, a THING -- worth watching. Even the handful of worthwhile conservative shows do nothing but perpetuate a medium that has outlived its usefulness.
Absolutely disgusting. The CBS Evening News wasn’t liberal enough.. now they have to fill their prime-time programming with anti-Christian (anti-American!) baloney, too?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.