Michael Stipe Wants Fox News to Stop Using His Music

Musician Michael Stipe says his band, R.E.M., has demanded a cease and desist from Fox News after the group's 1991 hit "Losing My Religion"was used during the network's coverage of the Democratic National Convention last night as an easy comment on controversy surrounding the use of "God" at the DNC.

A message posted on the band's website reads:

R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" was used in the Fox News coverage of the Democratic National Convention last night. R.E.M. today, through its music publisher, Warner-Tamerlane Music, demanded that Fox News cease and desist from continuing its unlicensed and unauthorized use of the song. Michael Stipe said, "We have little or no respect for their puff adder brand of reportage. Our music does not belong there."

Earlier this week GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan appeared on Fox & Friends to blast the change from the Democrats' 2008 platform. "I guess I would just put the onus and the burden on them to explain why they did all this, these purges of God," Ryan said.

However, on Wednesday President Obama ordered party leaders to restore a reference to God as well as a statement declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel to the party's 2012 platform document.