{"id":974,"date":"2011-08-12T10:36:37","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T14:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=974"},"modified":"2011-08-12T11:01:51","modified_gmt":"2011-08-12T15:01:51","slug":"fun-friday-stephen-colbert-the-rev-jim-martin-discuss-gods-low-approval-rating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/08\/fun-friday-stephen-colbert-the-rev-jim-martin-discuss-gods-low-approval-rating.html","title":{"rendered":"Fun Friday: Stephen Colbert on God&#8217;s Low Approval Rating; No Gay Marriage for Bert &amp; Ernie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If President Obama and other politicians are feeling down about their unpopularity these days, perhaps they can take some consolation in <a href=\"http:\/\/ncronline.org\/blogs\/ncr-today\/gods-approval-rating\">God&#8217;s surprisingly low approval rating<\/a>. (He&#8217;s<a href=\"http:\/\/www.christiancentury.org\/article\/2011-07\/poll-god-has-better-approval-rating-congress\"> still more popular than the politicians,<\/a> of course, but not by as much as you would expect.)<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, we have Catholic comedian Stephen Colbert and his &#8220;Colbert Nation chaplain&#8221; Father Jim Martin to skewer such faith news, including how non-Mormon Americans view Mormon presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: #000000;width: 520px\">\n<div style=\"padding: 4px\">\n<p><object width=\"512\" height=\"288\"><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/media.mtvnservices.com\/mgid:cms:video:colbertnation.com:394360\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"base\" value=\".\" \/><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"\" \/><embed width=\"512\" height=\"288\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/media.mtvnservices.com\/mgid:cms:video:colbertnation.com:394360\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;background-color: #ffffff;padding: 4px;margin-top: 4px;margin-bottom: 0px;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 12px\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colbertnation.com\/the-colbert-report-videos\/394360\/august-10-2011\/yaweh-or-no-way----mormons---god-s-poll-numbers\">The Colbert Report<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nGet More: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.colbertnation.com\/full-episodes\/\">Colbert Report Full Episodes<\/a>,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.indecisionforever.com\/\">Political Humor &amp; Satire Blog<\/a>,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.colbertnation.com\/video\">Video Archive<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #000000;width: 520px\">\n<div style=\"padding: 4px\">\n<p><object width=\"512\" height=\"288\"><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/media.mtvnservices.com\/mgid:cms:video:colbertnation.com:394361\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"base\" value=\".\" \/><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"\" \/><embed width=\"512\" height=\"288\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/media.mtvnservices.com\/mgid:cms:video:colbertnation.com:394361\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;background-color: #ffffff;padding: 4px;margin-top: 4px;margin-bottom: 0px;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 12px\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colbertnation.com\/the-colbert-report-videos\/394361\/august-10-2011\/god-s-job-performance---jim-martin\">The Colbert Report<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nGet More: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.colbertnation.com\/full-episodes\/\">Colbert Report Full Episodes<\/a>,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.indecisionforever.com\/\">Political Humor &amp; Satire Blog<\/a>,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.colbertnation.com\/video\">Video Archive<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As for the Fun Friday runner-up &#8212; the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christiantoday.com\/article\/gay.rights.supporters.want.sesame.streets.bert.and.ernie.to.marry\/28427.htm\">petition for Bert &amp; Ernie to have a gay wedding,<\/a> now that it&#8217;s legal in New York &#8212; please. \u00a0As a borderline obsessive fan of Jim Henson&#8217;s work, I implore everyone to respect the fact that the Sesame Street muppets (which don&#8217;t include the lascivious Ms. Piggy) are asexual! Occasional innuendo aside (especially in that &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XQyCCgF86pU\">Great Adventures&#8221; theme song<\/a>), Bert and Ernie are intended to show that different kinds of people can still be friends; no way would they make a functional married couple, even if one were female, or uh, <em>either<\/em> had anything other than a muppeteer&#8217;s hand down there! (Go watch <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=w4Y0knN8WUI\">&#8220;Avenue Q,&#8221; if you want sexy muppets<\/a>!)<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p>*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to\u00a0<strong>subscribe to Belief Beat\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to\u00a0<\/a><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If President Obama and other politicians are feeling down about their unpopularity these days, perhaps they can take some consolation in God&#8217;s surprisingly low approval rating. (He&#8217;s still more popular than the politicians, of course, but not by as much as you would expect.) Fortunately, we have Catholic comedian Stephen Colbert and his &#8220;Colbert Nation&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[408,409,205,14,405,406,154,410,411,87,407],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-news","tag-bert-ernie","tag-bert-and-ernie","tag-catholic-church","tag-christianity","tag-colbert-nation","tag-father-jim-martin","tag-gay-marriage","tag-sesame-street","tag-sesame-workshop","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-the-rev-jim-martin"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fun Friday: Stephen Colbert on God&#039;s Low Approval Rating; No Gay Marriage for Bert &amp; Ernie - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/08\/fun-friday-stephen-colbert-the-rev-jim-martin-discuss-gods-low-approval-rating.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fun Friday: Stephen Colbert on God&#039;s Low Approval Rating; No Gay Marriage for Bert &amp; Ernie - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If President Obama and other politicians are feeling down about their unpopularity these days, perhaps they can take some consolation in God&#8217;s surprisingly low approval rating. 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(He&#8217;s still more popular than the politicians, of course, but not by as much as you would expect.) Fortunately, we have Catholic comedian Stephen Colbert and his &#8220;Colbert Nation&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/08\/fun-friday-stephen-colbert-the-rev-jim-martin-discuss-gods-low-approval-rating.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-08-12T14:36:37+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-08-12T15:01:51+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/08\/fun-friday-stephen-colbert-the-rev-jim-martin-discuss-gods-low-approval-rating.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/08\/fun-friday-stephen-colbert-the-rev-jim-martin-discuss-gods-low-approval-rating.html","name":"Fun Friday: Stephen Colbert on God's Low Approval Rating; No Gay Marriage for Bert &amp; Ernie - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-08-12T14:36:37+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-12T15:01:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/08\/fun-friday-stephen-colbert-the-rev-jim-martin-discuss-gods-low-approval-rating.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/08\/fun-friday-stephen-colbert-the-rev-jim-martin-discuss-gods-low-approval-rating.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/08\/fun-friday-stephen-colbert-the-rev-jim-martin-discuss-gods-low-approval-rating.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fun Friday: Stephen Colbert on God&#8217;s Low Approval Rating; No Gay Marriage for Bert &amp; Ernie"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. 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