Bill Keller's Christian TV show canceled, Muslim pressure group blamed
dgrm...@telus.net
Bill Keller's Christian TV show canceled, Muslim pressure group
blamed*
Preacher says CBS 'caved' to demands of Islamic organization
Posted: August 25, 2007
CBS
A CBS television station in Tampa, Fla., has announced it is taking
the
ongoing "Live Prayer with Bill Keller" program, on the airwaves since
2003, off after the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations complained of the religious views Keller expressed.
CAIR-Tampa issued a statement that "WTOG-TV (CS44) dropped 'Live
Prayer'
after the station and its parent company CBS received a letter from
and
had discussions with the Islamic civil rights and advocacy group."
"It's clear what happened. CAIR pressured CBS in New York to take us
off. I have always dealt with the issues of the day from a biblical
worldview on my program," Keller said. "[The Bible] calls Islam a
false
religion. They took great offense. CBS caved."
Keller, who has been involved in controversy before, said the last
show
on the old station will be on Friday, Aug. 31, and the following
Monday
he will launch a morning program on a competing station.
"We already had our new morning show in the works," he said.
WTOG station manager Laura Caruso told the St. Petersburg Times the
decision to end Keller's contract was a mutual decision and had
nothing
to do with complaints from individuals.
But CAIR's leaders "say both local and network representatives
assured
them that the program would no longer air on the station after Sept.
11," according to the Times report.
And Keller said he didn't go willingly.
"I'm saying nothing now that I haven't been saying for five years,"
said
Keller. "Ultimately, it was pressure by CAIR that intimidated these
people into taking me off the air. It was not mutually agreeable.
They
told me they were taking me off the air, period."
CAIR said it had asked earlier this month that CBS remove Keller's
nightly talk show. CAIR-Tampa Executive Director Ahmed Bedier had
told
CBS chief Tom Kane as well as WTOG that he objected to the
programming.
"In the hate-filled program, 'Live Prayer with Bill Keller,' Islam
and
Muslims are referred to in the most vicious and bigoted of terms. For
example on May 2, 2007, host Bill Keller said: 'Islam is a
1,400-year-old lie from the pits of hell. It's leading a billion
peoples
[sic] to hell ... those who follow this false religion will die and
be
lost for all eternity.' On the same program, he also said, 'The false
religion of Islam is about hate, lies and death,'" the letter said.
"It is our belief that anti-Islamic rhetoric like that used in 'Live
Prayer with Bill Keller' is exactly the type of language that is
likely
to incite hate crimes against the American Muslim community," the
letter
said.
When the cancellation was announced, Bedier said, "While we strongly
support freedom of speech and religion, the public airwaves should
not
be used to promote hatred and bigotry. We commend WTOG-TV and CBS for
rejecting any association with those who would demonize a minority
group."
Keller said that his new show, Live Prayer AM on WTTA (Ch. 38), will
be
in a slightly different format, with a few more guests.
"But I will still be dealing with the news and events from a biblical
worldview," he said. "That will remain the same."
He began broadcasting on WTOG on March 3, 2003, and has done more
than
1,170 shows so far, paying the station several hundred thousand
dollars
a year for the airtime used.
In an interview with the St. Petersburg Times, a CAIR spokesman
claimed
credit for the removal of the program.
"They really based their decision upon our letter," Ramzy Kilic,
CAIR's
civil rights coordinator, told the newspaper. "They really did not
know
that Bill Keller was involved with this kind of anti-Muslim rhetoric."
Keller, since beginning his Live Prayer Internet ministry in 1999,
has
criticized Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses as well as Scientologists.
Earlier this year he earned the wrath of Americans United for
Separation
of Church and State when he wrote in a devotional that a vote for
Mitt
Romney, a Republican candidate for president who is a Mormon, is a
vote
for Satan.
The activist group asked the Internal Revenue Service to begin
investigating Keller for possible tax law violations.
At that point, Keller laughed off the claims. "Let them come after me
for making a spiritual statement about Mitt Romney. I would love
that,"
he said.
While some evangelical Christians were defending the presidential
candidacy of Romney from an attack by Al Sharpton, Keller took a step
in
the other direction.
"If you vote for Mitt Romney, you are voting for Satan!" he wrote in
a
daily devotional sent to 2.4 million e-mail subscribers on May 11.
Sharpton, the Democratic Party activist and former presidential
candidate, had been widely condemned for singling out Romney's faith
as
an issue in the campaign.
"As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe
in
God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a
temporary situation," he said.
Keller also said Romney wasn't a target; he was trying to expose the
Mormon church, saying when LDS members talk of God and Jesus they are
not talking about the God and Jesus of Christianity.
Keller was a businessman convicted of insider trading in 1989, a
crime
for which he served more than two years in federal prison. After
getting
out, he received a degree in biblical studies from Liberty University
in
Lynchburg, Virginia, and has been in full-time ministry ever since.
He
estimates he and his volunteers in the ministry have responded to
more
than 60 million e-mail prayer requests and helped introduce 190,000
people to Christ.
Participants in a Times blog had a range of responses to the news
that
the television show was being dropped.
"All I can say is ... Go Bill, tell it like it is ... God bless you,"
said
Michele.
"When did Bill Keller and the rest of our country lose the right to
free
speech," Added "G." "Each night he is just speaking what God, the God
of
the Bible says. Bill is not afraid to stand up for Jesus. Jesus says,
'I
am the way, the truth and the life.'"
"More Truth," added, "Poor, poor abused Muslims. The abuse they've
had
all because of the Billy Graham Organization attacking America on
9/11/01/ Muslims are so peaceful in the way they threaten to kill
infidels."
"JM4" had this to say: "CBS yielding to demands of a supposed 'civil
rights organization' isn't surprising. It is surprising that there is
no
acknowledgement that CAIR is a federal unindicted co-conspirator in a
terror related case in TX. Journalism at its finest! HA!"
The writer was referring to evidence at the trial of the Texas-based
Islamic charity Holy Land Foundation and five of its former
organizers,
who are accused of supporting Hamas. Prosecutors named the Council on
American-Islamic Relations an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.
"LOVE EVERYONE" added this: "In the name of Christanity, (sic) Jews
are
bad, God only lives in the south where he told them blacks should be
slaves and hatred was okay. Christianity has killed more people than
any
other religion on earth. I choose to beleive (sic) in GOD not US
Christianity."