Fox News viciously savaged Barack Obama after it emerged that his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, had once thundered that the September 11 attacks were "America's chickens ... coming home to roost," citing past U.S. human rights violations. So surely the network will roundly condemn Robert Jeffess, a Fox contributor and prominent evangelical, for telling Liberty University students on Tuesday that the attacks were God's punishment for abortion.

"All you have to do is look in history to see what God does with a nation that sanctions the killing of its own children," Jeffress said, speaking at the Jerry Falwell-founded university's convocation. "Just look at the nation of Israel ... Because they got involved in the worship of Moloch, the pagan god, and they sacrificed their children on the altar, what did God do? He raised up the godless Babylonians and Assyrians to bring judgement on his own people."

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Jeffress continued: "People ask me all the time, 'Well, I just don't understand why God wouldn't protect our nation and he would allow these radical Muslims in 2001 to kill 3,000 of our citizens and why God doesn't protect us. Surely, God doesn't use pagans to bring judgment upon his own people, does he?'"

"Just read the Bible," he said. "God will not allow sin to go unpunished and he certainly won't allow the sacrifice of children to go unpunished."

Falwell also considered 9/11 divine retribution for abortion, additionally blaming gays and lesbians, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the liberal group People for the American Way.

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Jeffress' remarks continue in his long tradition of inflammatory rhetoric. He has previously asserted that gay people are paving the path for the anti-Christ and urged Christian conservatives not to vote for the Mormon "cult" member Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential primaries. After Romney claimed the GOP nomination, however, Jeffress endorsed the former Massachusetts governor.

A Southern Baptist pastor by training, Jeffress is already being courted by likely 2016 presidential candidates. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul recently met with Jeffress ahead of an expected campaign announcement next month.

Watch Jeffress' remarks on 9/11 and abortion below, via Right Wing Watch: