Elisabeth Hasselbeck links atheists forcing prayer out of school to Christian deaths in Iraq

Fox News host Elisabeth Hasselbeck asserted on Wednesday that Christianity should be kept in schools because Christians were being persecuted by Islamic militants in Iraq.

"It looks like two groups might not get the Bible," Hasselbeck announce on Wednesday's edition of Fox & Friends. "There's a war on religion going on, you know it. And right now Bibles are booted from Navy base guest rooms, and an atheist group is telling a Georgia high school football team to punt the prayers."

Earlier this week the Navy announced that it was removing all religious materials from Navy guest lodges after the Freedom From Religion Foundation questioned whether the practice was constitutional. And the Appignani Humanist Legal Center accused Chestatee High School in Georgia of illegal religious practices for using prayer and Bible verses to inspire football players.

"I don't know how having a Bible in a hotel room in a drawer is forced on anyone," Fox News co-host Eric Bolling opined. "You don't want to read it, leave it in the drawer. How is that implicating the Navy in any way, shape or form?"

"You would think that a federally run organization would be able to make their own decisions," co-host Brian Kilmeade agreed. "But its atheist organizations that are pushing back on that."

After reading comments from a few viewers who accused atheists of wanting to have more rights than Christians, Hasselbeck connected the situation to violence in Iraq.

"You know, in light of what's going on in the world and the persecution of Christians right now, how close do we want to get to eliminating religious freedom in the globe?" she asked. "Particularly here."

Bolling added that he carried a copy of the Constitution in his pocket "every single day," and he was pretty sure that atheists were "overstepping the bounds."

Watch the video below from Fox News' Fox & Friends, broadcast Aug. 13, 2014.