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ABC News host Ashan SinghABC News / YouTube

April 1, 2021 (NewsBusters) – ABC’s Nightline on Monday proved, yet again, that journalists have no concept of religion or what might be offensive. The late-night news program promoted Lil Nas X and his “Satan Shoes,” as well as the singer's new video in which he “slides down from heaven to hell on a pole and twerks on Satan.” This, apparently, is only offensive to “conservative Christians,” a label that reporter Ashan Singh uses twice.

As though this were all normal, Nightline co-host Juju Chang hyped, “Lil Nas X taking the old town road to hell. Going viral again and igniting controversy. How the 'Call Me By Your Name' singer is confronting homophobia and selling out a special edition of Satan shoes.”

Sounding like PR for the Satan-loving song, Singh touted, “It's these words and these images where Lil Nas X, who is openly gay, is seduced in the garden of Eden and then slides down from heaven to hell on a pole and twerks on Satan, that has people glued to their scenes.”

He chided, “But the racy song and video has some members of the conservative Christian community up in arms.” At another point, he used the same language: “Some in the conservative Christian community in an uproar over his latest song and music video.” Right, because who else other than conservatives would be bothered by blood-drenched Satan shoes and twerking on the devil?

In addition to the music video, Lil Nas X is cross-promoting demonic shoes: “The shoes allegedly contain a drop of human blood, in addition to traditional satanic imagery like the pentagram.” Singh then turned to podcaster Sarah Marshall to gush over the Satanism:

I think it's a really beautiful video, and it feels like we're being asked to witness and appreciate a sexuality that has not been passed around Twitter and shown to everyone in this way before and that it feels to me like a brilliant maneuver to make something beautiful and inspiring.

The only hint in the entire eight minute-plus segment that all of this could be horribly offensive is when Singh featured South Carolina Pastor Mark Burns. He called it all “disgusting” and added:

As long as Lil Nas X is promoting what we consider one of the most damaging images in our culture, which is to Satan, and to glorify Satan, if that's his belief system, he has a right to worship whoever he wants to worship, but we have a right to not buy his product. We have a right to go after the corporations that support and back him.

Remember when Nightline used to be a news program? It's been quite a while since the era of Ted Koppel. Twerking with Satan makes Nightline's fascination with “bootleg butt injections” look positively classy. 

And speaking of corporations, Febreze and Volkswagen sponsored the cheerleading for Satanic twerking. Click on the links to let them know you have a problem with all this.

Published with permission from NewsBusters.