On the June 1 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, discussing the recent news that attorney Andrew Speaker traveled by airline while infected with an antibiotic-resistant strain of tuberculosis, host Bill O'Reilly asserted that the “the story comes down to ... philosophy of life.” O'Reilly explained: “Traditional-values people put others on a par with themselves. ... Secular progressives put themselves above all others. That philosophy says, 'Me first, then I'll worry about you.' As a nation, the USA has been successful embracing the traditional point of view. But today, that's being challenged. And this TB case is a great example.” He added: “Did Speaker put his own welfare above everything and everybody else? You bet he did.”

Later in the broadcast, discussing with Focus on the Family chairman James C. Dobson recent comments about drugs and sex made by panelists at the Conference on World Affairs to a group of students at Boulder High School in Boulder, Colorado, O'Reilly again generalized about the beliefs of so-called “secular progressives.” He said: “Secular progressives are going to basically tell children to use drugs, to have indiscriminate sex, do what you want when you're 14 years old, never mind what your parents think.”

Media Matters for America has documented (here, here, here, here and here) numerous examples of O'Reilly's attacks on what he calls “secular progressives,” as well as dubious claims about who qualifies as such. For instance, on the November 27, 2006, broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor, O'Reilly claimed that “secular progressives” want “out-of-wedlock birth in the USA” to be “at record highs.” Additionally, on the November 18, 2005, edition of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly asserted that the “war” on Christmas is part of the “secular-progressive agenda” that also includes the “legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, [and] gay marriage, because the objection to those things is religious-based, usually.”

From the June 1 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: OK, so Speaker says he wasn't fully aware of his condition. His wife says he thought he was going to die. Add it up.

So what the story comes down to is philosophy of life. Traditional-values people put others on a par with themselves. That's a Judeo-Christian tenet. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Secular progressives put themselves above all others. That philosophy says, “Me first, then I'll worry about you.” As a nation, the USA has been successful embracing the traditional point of view. But today, that's being challenged. And this TB case is a great example.

Are Andrew Speaker and his wife bad people? Probably not. Did Speaker put his own welfare above everything and everybody else? You bet he did.

So what do you think about that? What would you have done? Stayed in Italy in a strange place to avoid infecting strangers or high-tail it out of there? Interesting question, isn't it? And that's the Memo.

[...]

O'REILLY: All right, so your -- your organization, it would be, you know, the corruption of minors and the encouragement of minors to break the law. It's going to be a tough stretch. I don't know if the attorney general of Colorado is going to want to go in on that.

Is there anything else, though, that you can do, your organization can do, to mobilize people, because I think this is so bad and so over the top, and this is sending a message to the whole country that, look, it's out in the open now. Secular progressives are going to basically tell children to use drugs, to have indiscriminate sex, do what you want when you're 14 years old, never mind what your parents think. And I think this is -- becomes a culture war battle front and center for the entire country. So what can your organization do?