In response to PBS's April 26 FRONTLINE® report The Jesus Factor -- which, according to PBS, focused on "[h]ow George W. Bush became a born-again Christian -- and the impact that decision has had on his political career" -- FrontPageMag.com editor-in-chief David Horowitz, in a May 3 article (titled “Guided by God, or Guided by his Gonads?”), wrote that The Jesus Factor was a “not-so-subtle election year effort to scare the PBS audience into believing that the President is a religious fanatic, hostage to faith-driven and (therefore) mindless evangelicals.” Horowitz concluded:
Liberals do have a big problem with decent, law-abiding American Christians, and their problem -- judging from “The Jesus Factor” -- is evidently their religious faith. ... God help liberal bigots who have no faith but themselves and whose prejudice and hatred is reserved for those who defend them.
According to various polls, liberals do have faith and do believe in God. According to a March CBS News/New York Times poll, 32 percent of Democrats said that religion is “extremely important” in their lives; 35 percent of Democrats believed it was “very important”; and only 9 percent of all respondents said religion was “not at all important” in their daily life. According to a 2004 poll conducted by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 15 years ago, 36 percent of African Americans described themselves as born-again or evangelical Protestants; today, 50 percent of African Americans, the vast majority of whom vote Democrat, described themselves as such. According to the same poll, 81 percent of all respondents said that prayer is an important part of their daily lives; and 87 percent agreed with the statement “I never doubt the existence of God.”
David Horowitz is the author of books such as Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes (1999) and How to Beat the Democrats and Other Subversive Ideas (2002). In an August 30, 1999, Time magazine article, Time's Jack E. White described Horowitz as a “prominent right-wing ideologue” and a “real, live bigot.” Regarding Horowitz's August 16, 1999, Salon.com article, White wrote, “Like all good propaganda, Horowitz's piece, titled 'Guns don't kill black people, other blacks do,' started plausibly, with a critique of the N.A.A.C.P.'s lawsuit against gun manufacturers. ... But that pointed query was merely a launching point for Horowitz's real message: a blanket assault on the alleged moral failures of African Americans so strident and accusatory that it made the antiblack rantings of Dinesh D'Souza seem like models of fair-minded social analysis. ... Horowitz's slander wouldn't matter much if he spoke only for himself. But for the past three decades, Horowitz, 60, has been a conduit through which extreme political ideas gain access to the mainstream.”
Horowitz sponsors the Wednesday Morning Club, a lunch forum for media and business executives to discuss conservative ideas, which hosts speakers such as House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Vice President Dick Cheney, Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol.