Christian group caught lying. Surprised?

This last holiday season the Christian Right tried to make the holidays (yes, Virginia, there are more than one) as political as possible. They hyped up the bull of a "war on Christmas". Now one of these group is facing a lawsuit due to the claims they invented.

The misnamed Liberty Counsel raised funds through a national appeal which said that the Dodgeville, Wisconsin, school district had banned a rendition of Silent Night. One way to raise funds from the boobs in the movement is to tell then how their very life is under attack by evil secularists. But the claims were false. And even the school district website had the facts posted. But this was ignored by the Taliban.

Of course Liberty Counsel threatened the district with law suits. In the end the school district spend $23,000 in legal expenses and added security because they feared the widespread accusations might bring out some violent individuals. Now the school district has written Liberty Counsel demanding that the Tablian repay them for the expenses. Sounds fair.

The mullah at Liberty Counsel says the whole problem should be laid at the door of the school district. He says they should have called him to correct his accusations. In other words he is not responsible for what he says other people are. Apparently he did not have the responsibility of checking his facts first. All this talk on the Right about "responsibility" is bull. They never take responsibility for the falsehoods they disseminate.

Now Liberty Counsel has several projects. One is to try and force schools to use taxpayer funding to finance the Christian message. They think liberty means they can do what they want at the expense of others. They also wanto to prevent gay people from marrying and stop abortion. For people who pretend they support liberty they certainly want state control of others. One hysterical book they sell is "Same-Sex Marriage: Putting Every Household at Risk." Right!

The head of this "public interest law firm" claims that the school should receive nothing for the costs imposted on them by his false accusations. Insteady, "They ought to be glad they didn't incur a lawsuit."

Even now the group still lies about the case on their website. They claimed that the school had banned Silent Night and was replacing it with entirely secular lyrics. The district said that is false. They said that the traditional song was always on the program of their celebration along with a reading of the words for the other song. They told Liberty Counsel that was the case. Liberty Counsel, instead of admitting they were wrong, crowed that this was a victory for them becasue the district "has now dumped Cold in the Nihgt from its 'winter program.' After receiving an avalanche of phone calls and emails, late yesterday afternoon, Debra Messer, the District Administrator, confirmed that Silent Night will be sung."

Notice the deceptive wording. They didn't say the district "has now added" the song to the agenda only that they "confirmed" it would be sung. They want the Bible boobs who pray for them and send them donations to think this was a great victory for the rightous. So they say this happened after the "avalanche" of harassment thay Libert Counsel encouraged. This is to imply that the avalance caused the district to cave in. In reality what they actually said if you are carefully read the claims is that there as this avalanche of harassment and then the district confirmed the song would be sung. It gives the impression that the campaign caused the song to be sung. But it doesn't actually say it.

Instead of simply saying: "Hey, we were wrong. The school district had never banned the song and was going to sing it all the time" they wrote a statement that, while factual, allows the groups supporters to think something contrary to the truth.

The head of the group, Mathew Staver, has written a book Take Back America which lays out the case for the "need of God in America again". Staver has a booklook on the Myth of Separation of Church and State. They also sell a video "The Truth Behind the Declaration of Independence" which claims that it was intended "to create a society based on Christian values using the Bible as its sole source of guidance." Of course the Declaration was written by a man who opposed orthodox Christianity -- Thomas Jefferson. But we already know this group plays fast and loose with the truth.

And for some reason the website promots "soy products" and links to sites where people can buy the stuff. I wonder if Staver has any financial stakes in the company being promoted? It would be interesting to find out.