Cal Thomas

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Cal Thomas (born 1942) is an American conservative syndicated columnist, author and radio commentator.

Thomas was born in Washington, D.C.. He attended the American University for his undergraduate education. During the 1960s and early 1970s he worked as a reporter at NBC News. His column began in 1984 and appears in more than 550 newspapers throughout the United States. He is a panelist on Fox News Watch, a Fox News Channel program critiquing the media, and until September 2005 hosted After Hours with Cal Thomas on the same network. He also gives a daily radio commentary, which is heard on more than 300 stations.

Thomas has written extensively about political issues and he supports, among other things, many American positions related to Israel.

He has written 10 books, including Blinded By Might, that discussed, among other things, the role of the Moral Majority in American politics of the 1980s. Thomas was vice president of the Moral Majority from 1980 to 1985. He remains an evangelical Christian.

This article's "criticism" or "controversy" section may compromise the article's neutrality. Please help rewrite or integrate negative information to other sections through discussion on the talk page.

In response to the Dolphinarium disco bombing in Tel-Aviv that killed 21 people, mostly high school students, Thomas authored a June 6, 2001, article in the Jewish World Review expressing support for expelling Palestinians to surrounding Arab countries.

Israel should declare its intention to transfer large numbers of its Palestinian residents to Arab nations. This sounds radical until one considers that is precisely what Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have done. After the Palestinians assisted Saddam Hussein in Iraq's invasion of Kuwait during the Gulf War (which Arafat cheered while calling on Hussein to shell Israel), Kuwait forcibly evicted and transferred to Jordan about 300,000 Palestinians, labeling them as traitors and a fifth column. Saudi Arabia also recognized Arafat's betrayal of their Kuwaiti hosts by transferring about 350,000 Palestinians to Jordan.^[1]

— Cal Thomas, A coalition of terror, 2001

In 2004, Cal Thomas was the target of a Google bomb attack, where the phrase "ignorant asshole" was linked to his website.^[2] This Googlebomb was triggered by a segment on his After Hours show regarding the Netherlands' policy on euthanasia. It soon became an attack on the Netherlands' drug policy, prostitution, and the nation's immigration policy. In a follow-up, Thomas rejoined "Thanks to our Dutch viewers for watching and for caring enough to write. Keep watching. Maybe you'll see some things you do like."

In his article "Mumbai Explained", published in the Chicago Tribune, Thomas writes that "no new [Mosques] should be built" in Western countries following the Mumbai terrorist attacks. He further claimed that Muslim immigration posed a danger to the UK and USA.

After Bill Clinton became the first sitting United States president to address a gay advocacy organization, the Human Rights Campaign,^[3] Thomas published a column^[4] in November 1997 opposing homosexuality, in which he said:

God designed norms for behavior that are in our best interests. When we act outside those norms—such as for premarital sex, adultery, or homosexual sex—we cause physical, emotional, and spiritual damage to ourselves and to our wider culture. The unpleasant consequences of divorce and sexually transmitted diseases are not the result of intolerant bigots seeking to denigrate others. They are the result of violating God's standards, which were made for our benefit.

— Cal Thomas, Immutable Morals

Thomas published a similar column^[5] on October 16, 2009, after Barack Obama became the second sitting United States president to address the Human Rights Campaign.^[3] Thomas said:

We will get more of what we tolerate. Sexual behavior is an important cultural and moral issue. Mr. Obama won the election with just 52 percent of the popular vote and a margin of 7 percent over Sen. John McCain. This should not be seen as a mandate for him and his administration to make over America in a secular and liberal image. Neither should it be seen as an invitation to give blanket approval to homosexuality, considered by some to be against the best interests of the people who practice it as well as the nations that accept it.

— Cal Thomas, Don't Ask, Tell or Legitimize

In the early 1970s Thomas was a reporter with KPRC-TV in Houston, Texas. He was an onsite reporter during Fred Carrasco's 1974 Huntsville Prison Siege, of which Thomas wrote, “It is a tragedy that two hostages died. It is a miracle all the rest lived.”

• 2008, "Mumbai Explained" Cal Thomas Chicago Tribune/Daily Yomiuri
• 2007, Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That Is Destroying America with Bob Beckel (ISBN 978-0-06-123634-1)
• 2001, The Wit & Wisdom of Cal Thomas (ISBN 1-58660-299-3)
• 1999, Blinded by Might (ISBN 0-310-22650-3)
• 1994, The Things That Matter Most (ISBN 0-06-017083-2)
• 1988, The Death of Ethics in America (ISBN 0-8499-0638-5)

• Cal Thomas Website
• Cal Thomas at Townhall.com
• Cal Thomas at IMDb Retrieved on 2008-01-17