Shawn Akers

As we have pointed out many times before, once a mythical incident of supposed Christian victimization gets embraced by the Religious Right, it takes on a life of its own as no amount of evidence pointing out that the incident never happened will stop if from being spread.

And that principle was demonstrated today on Liberty Counsel's "Faith and Freedom" radio broadcast where hosts Matt Barber and Shawn Akers juxtaposed the news of Jason Collins' coming out against the story of Derrick Hayes, a high school runner who was supposedly disqualified from an event for thanking God after finishing a race.

While someone like Collins is hailed as a hero, Akers said, someone like Hayes is "almost criminalized":

Of course, as we pointed out earlier this week, the entire saga of Hayes' supposed victimization was false, as even Hayes himself admits: 

Based on the UIL’s investigation, the student athlete raised his hand and gestured forward at the conclusion of the 4x100-meter relay. The meet official approached the student-athlete in an effort to warn him of a possible disqualification should that behavior continue. In the opinion of the official, the student reacted disrespectfully. Based on his reaction, the student-athlete was subsequently disqualified. Any decision to disqualify a student-athlete at any track meet must be upheld by the head meet referee. The meet official and the meet referee conferred, and the disqualification was upheld on-site. At no point during the discussions surrounding the disqualification at the meet was the issue of religious expression raised by any parties.

The UIL’s investigation also revealed that all coaches involved were notified prior to the regional meet that any gestures in violation of the National Federation of State High School Associations track and field rule against unsporting behavior would be grounds for disqualification. Coaches were instructed to discuss this with their student-athletes prior to all races.

To assist the UIL in its investigation, the student-athlete’s parents submitted a letter stating that their son’s religious freedoms were not violated. “In looking back at the conclusion of the 4x100 race, we realize that Derrick could have handled the win in a different manner,” KC and Stacey Hayes said in the letter. “It was not our intention to force the issue that our son’s religious freedom was violated. Nor do we feel that way now. After discussing this with our son, we have come to the conclusion that his religious rights were not violated.”

The student-athlete who was disqualified also submitted a letter during the investigation stating: “Although I am very thankful for all God has given me and blessed me with, on Saturday, April 27, 2013 at the Regional Track Meet in Kingsville, TX, my actions upon winning the 4x100 relay were strictly the thrill of victory. With this being said, I do not feel my religious rights or freedoms were violated.”

Even though Hayes admits that he was not disqualified for thanking God, Liberty Counsel continues to spread the myth, thus demonstrating yet again they aren't going to stop promoting a good tale of victimhood just because it happens to be demonstrably false.

Last month, a judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by American Atheists seeking to prevent a pair of beams in the shape of a cross that was pulled from the debris of the collapsed World Trade Center from being included in the official 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

On today's "Faith and Freedom" radio program, Mat Staver and Shawn Akers discussed the lawsuit, with Akers calling it "religious McCarthyism" and saying that it is ironic that "extremists from a particular religion brought down the Twin Towers, but the atheists are coming in to finish the job":

Earlier this month, Dan Savage set off a bit of controversy when he declared that "every dead gay kid is a victory for the Family Research Council," prompting FRC president Tony Perkins to hint that legal action might be taken against him.

Today, Matt Barber and Shawn Akers discussed Savage's comments on the "Faith and Freedom" radio program during which Barber suggested that Savage was intentionally "sending a signal to the next Floyd Corkins to go in and try again" while Akers asserted that he "didn't want to go off into hyperbole" right before he declared that Savage's remarks were just like "Hitler's programmatic desensitization of the German people toward the Jewish population": 

A few weeks ago, we wrote a post about a new report from Liberty Institute and the Family Research Council entitled "The Survey on Religious Hostility in America" which claims to have chronicled "more than 600 cases detailing religious bigotry throughout America."

We noted that one of the cases prominently cited in the report was the story about a ten-year old boy named Raymond Raines who was supposedly yanked out of his chair in the school cafeteria and screamed at by a teacher simply for praying before eating his lunch.

It is one of the Religious Right's favorite tales of victimhood and, as we have noted several times before, it's nearly twenty years old and totally false: 

The St. Louis case concerned 10-year-old Raymond Raines who, his mother said, was given detention because he sought to pray over his lunch. When lawyers for the Rutherford Institute heard about the case, they filed a lawsuit against the principal and issued a press release denouncing the school system.

"I know it sounds bizarre, but we have substantial evidence to believe it happened," said Timothy Belz, the St. Louis lawyer working with the Rutherford Institute.

On NBC-TV's "Meet the Press," Gingrich described the situation as "a real case about a real child. Should it be possible for the government to punish you if you say grace over your lunch? That's what we used to think of Russian behavior when they were the Soviet Union."

But school officials said the incident never happened. Rather, they said, Raymond was disciplined for fighting in the cafeteria.

"I can tell you he was not reprimanded for praying," said Kenneth Brostron, the school's lawyer. "Do you think it makes sense that the teachers would look around the cafeteria and target the one student who was praying quietly at his seat?"

But that, of course, didn't stop Matt Barber and Shawn Akers from citing it on today's "Faith and Freedom" radio program, where Akers bizarrely linked it to the Declaration of Independence:

For good measure, Barber chimed in to declare that "the hostility against religion, Christianity in particular, has reached such heights that government officials are physically assaulting for praying over a meal in the schools.  That's not hyperbole; that's a specific example."

The claim is, of course, nothing but hyperbole.

We already know that the folks over at Liberty Counsel believe that secular humanism is a religion, so perhaps it shouldn't come as much of a surprise when, on today's installment of the "Faith and Freedom" radio program, Shawn Akers explained that the religion of secular humanism even has its own Trinity - Darwin, Marx, and Freud:

I'll tell you something that's really interesting, Ron. There was a poet by the name of William Butler Yeats wrote a poem called "The Second Coming" around the early 1900s and his idea was that every two thousand years, a new God arises. And it was kind of striking that, after two thousand years after Christ, about the time that Yeats wrote this poem, no new God was to be found, or at least we didn't think so.

But it was about that time Darwin came on the scene and told us that you really created yourself by dragging yourself out of the primordial ooze and evolving faster then all the other species. And Marx came along and told us really that religion is the opiate of the masses, that if you're going to be fed, you're going to feed yourself. And then Freud came along and said if you don't feel good about yourself, don't look to a god to heal you, you got to dig down deep in yourself through psychoanalysis and you're your own counselor.

What I find interesting about that, Ron, is that we took the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - the father that told us where we came from, that I created you in the beginning, we took the Son that said I'll tell you that I'm going to feed you and heal you and tell you how to find your substance, and we took the counselor, the Holy Spirit, and we put Freud in his place and said you counsel yourself.

In other words, the new god that arose under Yeats' scheme was secular humanism. It was making man god.

This is a pretty interesting theory, aside from the fact that the works of Marx and Darwin had been published more then a half-century before Yeats' poem and both men had already been dead for nearly forty years.

Liberty Counsel has stringently opposed anti-bullying programs, with LC’s Director of Cultural Affairs Matt Barber even claiming that the reason gay and lesbian youth have a higher rate of suicide is because they “often look inward and know that what they are doing is unnatural, is wrong, is immoral.” So it came as no surprise when Shawn Akers, LC’s Public Policy Analyst, said today on Faith & Freedom that California’s LGBT-inclusive history law represented bullying of the worst kind. Akers said it was “ironic” that gay rights groups supported anti-bullying initiatives, and referencing a case in New Mexico where LC is representing students who said they were disciplined for handing out bible verses, Akers said regarding the California law, “if you want to talk about bullying, this is the state bullying the weakest members of society.”

Watch:

We have written several posts about Edwin Graning, a Texas bus driver who refused to transport a passenger to a Planned Parenthood facility in Austin because he believed she was going to get an abortion.

Of course, Graning has absolutely no justification for making such a decision and was subsequently fired.  And so, with the support of the American Center for Law and Justice, he claimed he was being discriminated against because of his religion and sued ... and was awarded a $21,000 settlement when the bus service decided it would be cheaper to pay him than to fight it out in court.

As part of the settlement, Graning was barred from working for the bus system, which is now making it clear that all drivers are required to take passengers to their destinations ... which is very upsetting to Mat Staver and Shawn Akers of Liberty Counsel, who are claiming that Graning was vindicated (which he wasn't) while the bus service's new policy means that "if someone wants to rob a bank and they need a ride, that our bus system has to take them there":  

Can I just point out that these two men are responsible for teaching the law to students at Liberty University's law school?

• Jim Garlow is now running the show at Renewing American Leadership because Newt Gingrich and Rick Tyler had to step aside due to Gingrich's presidential campaign.
• Speaking of Gingrich, he's written a book on "American Exceptionalism." So that ought to be interesting.
• NOM has a new Facebook page ... I wonder why?
• Matt Barber and Shawn Akers spent today's radio program blasting Judge Vaughan Walker and asserting that gay judges cannot rule on cases involving issues that might be relevant to gays.
• Peter LaBarbera is outraged over Joe.My.God's award from GLAAD.

We already know that Liberty Counsel, like other Religious Right groups, zealously opposes programs designed to stop bullying if they include bullying based on sexual orientation. Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with Liberty Counsel, decried such anti-bullying programs as a “homo-fascist tactic” and a “‘Trojan Horse’ strategy,” saying that high suicide rates among gay and lesbian youth is because “kids who are engaging in homosexual behavior often look inward and know that what they are doing is unnatural, is wrong, is immoral, and so they become depressed and the instances of suicide can rise there as well.” Liberty Counsel’s Public Policy Analyst Shawn Akers dubbed bullying-prevention initiatives as “a form of indoctrination and reeducation that smacks of socialist and communist countries.”

Now, the group’s founder Mat Staver is deriding tomorrow’s Day of Silence for allegedly propagating a “radical sexualized agenda.” Like the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel is urging a boycott. The Day of Silence is an event where students take a vow of silence to show their solidarity with children who are bullied, harassed or attacked due to their sexual orientation, but Liberty Counsel claims that it is “not protected under the First Amendment” and part of the “homosexual and transsexual promotion agenda.” In another attempt by far-right groups to play the victim, Liberty Counsel claims that the Day of Silence makes students “feel like outsiders” and pushes “intolerance” by protesting the marginalization and bullying of gay students.

Parents and students will protest the so-called “Day of Silence” agenda tomorrow. Last year, some parents chose to withdraw their children from any school that promotes the Day of Silence. The Day of Silence is a project of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which promotes a radical sexualized agenda, including the promotion of books that encourage sex between adults and minors.

Parents are encouraged to call the schools their children attend and tell them the reason their children will not be attending. School administrators usually listen, because the school loses money for each absence.

The Day of Silence has been turned into a homosexual and transsexual promotion agenda. Neither students nor public school teachers or staff should be forced to promote homosexual behavior.

School teachers should be aware that students do not have the right to remain silent when they are called upon by teachers. Conduct on the part of a student that causes a substantial disruption or material interference with school activities is not protected under the First Amendment. Students cannot learn if they refuse to participate in class, and they harm other students’ experience by not contributing to a dialogue of learning.

School administrators do not have to promote the Day of Silence. In those states that require abstinence instruction, schools do not have to recognize clubs that promote sexual activities.

Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, said, “The Day of Silence is not about tolerance or bullying. It is about pushing a sexual agenda. Students and staff who disagree with a radical sexualized agenda are demonized and made to feel like outsiders. Children should be afforded a rigorous education opportunity and not be forced to accept a radical sexualized agenda subsidized with tax dollars. Parents and lawmakers should take the time to learn about the extreme views of GLSEN and the intolerance promoted by the Day of Silence.”