Ann Coulter refers to Africa as "disease-ridden cesspool" in victim-blaming Ebola rant

Coulter asks, "Can't anyone serve Christ in America anymore?" and somehow becomes even more hateful

Published August 6, 2014 9:07PM (EDT)

Ann Coulter                      (AP/Cliff Owen)
Ann Coulter (AP/Cliff Owen)

Ann Coulter's latest column is filled with more idiocy than I can really dissect. Entitled, "Ebola doc's condition downgraded to 'idiocy,'" the piece is a takedown of Dr. Ken Brantly, one of the two Americans who has been diagnosed with Ebola. She condemns the missionary for making Christian charities Samaritan's Purse and SIM USA pay for him to fly in a private jet back to the U.S. and receive care at "one of America's premier hospitals."

She goes on to ask the question: "Can't anyone serve Christ in America anymore?" America has all sorts of problems, she says. Murder! Drug overdoses! Babies born out of wedlock! But no, no Christian can spare a moment for these worthy causes.

Obviously, millions of Christians do good work (and some less good work) on these causes everyday. So, really, it seems Coulter is just picking on Dr. Brantly. She writes:

If Dr. Brantly had practiced at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and turned one single Hollywood power-broker to Christ, he would have done more good for the entire world than anything he could accomplish in a century spent in Liberia. Ebola kills only the body; the virus of spiritual bankruptcy and moral decadence spread by so many Hollywood movies infects the world.

If he had provided health care for the uninsured editors, writers, videographers and pundits in Gotham and managed to open one set of eyes, he would have done more good than marinating himself in medieval diseases of the Third World...

Which explains why American Christians go on "mission trips" to disease-ridden cesspools. They're tired of fighting the culture war in the U.S., tired of being called homophobes, racists, sexists and bigots. So they slink off to Third World countries, away from American culture to do good works, forgetting that the first rule of life on a riverbank is that any good that one attempts downstream is quickly overtaken by what happens upstream.

Did she just say it would be more noble if he had converted Ari Emanuel than work with communities devastated by a lethal virus? Did she just call all American Christians homophobic, racist, sexist and bigoted? Don't worry, Dr. Brantly. If Ann Coulter doesn't want you, we (the educated and tolerant) are more than willing to have you.


By Joanna Rothkopf

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Ann Coulter Ebola Hatefulness