ESPN: Radical Islam Fine by Us

ESPN, the champion of Caitlyn Jenner and purveyor of the gay kiss seen ’round the world, has a real issue with anyone taking aim at violent Islamic extremism. Even with facts.

The “entertainment and sports network,” owned jointly by The Walt Disney Co. and the Manhattan-based Hearst Corp., publisher of Cosmopolitan and O, The Oprah Mgazine, promptly suspended a former major league pitcher over a tweet that compared Muslims to Nazi-era Germans.

“Only 5-10% of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis. How’d that go?” the tweet said, which wasn’t actually written by famed pitcher Curt Schilling. He simply retweeted a meme, adding his own text: “The math is staggering when you get the true #’s.”

“Curt’s tweet was completely unacceptable, and in no way represents our company’s perspective. We made that point very strongly to Curt,” said ESPN.

Although he quickly deleted the tweet, it was too late. The PC police were on the way.

ESPN, which gave Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner its Arthur Ashe Courage award (instead of star athlete Noah Galloway, who lost an arm and a leg in a roadside bomb attack in Iraq and who now competes in marathons and ran the 58-hour “Death Race”), was swift with the sword.

“Curt’s tweet was completely unacceptable, and in no way represents our company’s perspective. We made that point very strongly to Curt and have removed him from his current Little League assignment pending further consideration,” the network said.

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Schilling, in an attempt to save his paycheck, immediately acquiesced.

“I understand and accept my suspension. 100% my fault. Bad choices have bad consequences and this was a bad decision in every way on my part,” he tweeted to his 133,000 followers Wednesday on Twitter.

Most interesting was the discussion that never happened: The comparison of radical Islamists to Nazis is backed by fact. Here’s why:

There were about six million official members of the Nazi Party in 1940 — about 8 percent of the population then of Germany. Using PolitiFact’s loose definition, about 19 percent of Islamists worldwide, some 182 million, are “radicalized.” Author Ben Shapiro, who uses a much more stringent definition of “radicalized,” puts the number at more than 800 million, about 80 percent of Muslims. But either way, fact.

ISIS and other extremist Islamic groups are following the same path as Nazi Germany: Targeting Jews and Christians (and, ESPN should note, executing gays by dropping them off high buildings).

More, ISIS and other extremist Islamic groups are following the same path as Nazi Germany: Targeting Jews and Christians (and, ESPN should note, executing gays by dropping them off high buildings), killing innocents, raping women, enslaving children. Their goal: To exterminate believers of faiths they deem inferior to Islam and establish a Muslim Caliphate. Sounds a bit like a Fourth Reich.

So, while ESPN deemed the tweet “offensive,” it is, any way you slice it, accurate. But the network was far more concerned about offending Muslim sports fans than it was about accuracy. Not so, though, on the subject of Christians.

The network has flouted the transgender Jenner to boost its ratings. The ESPYs, appearing on Disney-owned ABC for the first time in a 23-year run, drew eight million viewers in prime-time, a 300 percent rise over last year’s viewers.

ESPN also featured a gay kiss, when Michael Sam, the first openly gay player drafted to the NFL, kissed his boyfriend. The clip was played over and over on mainstream media even as some NFL superstars complained.

“Man U got little kids lookin at the draft. I can’t believe ESPN even allowed that to happen,” former Super Bowl champion Derrick Ward tweeted that night.

Schilling, an outspoken Christian and huge supporter of the military, has been repeatedly denied entry to the Hall of Fame.

In response, ESPN anchor Stuart Scott tweeted: “NFL guys get drafted. Kiss girlfriends. @MikeSamFootball kissed his boyfriend. Don’t like? … that’s a ‘you’ problem,’ ‘Congrats Mike!’ ” The anchor was not suspended because, in the end, only the people who perhaps believe marriage is between a man and a woman (read: Christians) were likely to be offended.

ESPN also did not suspend regular ESPN guest Kevin Blackstone when he called the “Star-Spangled Banner” a “war anthem.” Hey, he’s just saying on the airwaves what they say at the Disney-Hearst “holiday” party in Manhattan, so where’s the problem?

Schilling, an outspoken Christian and huge supporter of the military, has been repeatedly denied entry to the Hall of Fame. He was on the ballot this year for the third time and more than 60 percent of the voters didn’t check his name. His numbers are huge. He holds seven all-time records.

So what’s keeping him out of the Hall of Fame? Is it perhaps his political views, which he is not shy about voicing (even if he did back down quickly this time)? And how long can Hall voters justify his omission?

Not a story you’re likely to see any time soon on ESPN.