David Barton recently appeared on “The Story of Liberty” radio program to discuss the document he released earlier this year proclaiming that Barack Obama was “America’s Most Biblically-Hostile U. S. President.” Predictably, the interview was filled with the sorts of half-truths and misrepresentations we have come to expect from Barton, including one segment where he spun a convoluted theory that President Obama refuses to protect the conscience rights of Christians not to pay for contraception because Obama himself has no conscience as demonstrated by his support for abortion rights.
It wouldn’t be a proper Barton interview if it didn’t include several outright lies which, of course, this one did:
[President Eisenhower] has the National Day of Prayer started. So that’s been going since [19]54 and the White House regularly participates in the National Day of Prayer and issues National Day of Prayer proclamations until May of 2009; the first National Day of Prayer after Obama’s in office and they decline to host services for the National Day of Prayer. So from the very start, he starts off in a brand new direction after President Clinton had national days of prayer at the White House, and President Carter and President Reagan, but not President Obama, he’s not going to do that.
…
Seven times he deliberately omitted the reference to God in the Declaration [of Independence,] quotes it but leaves the God part out because he doesn’t agree with that. So that’s crazy. And he won’t say the national motto is “In God We Trust” – I’m sorry, that’s established by law – no, he says the national motto is ‘E pluribus unum,’ that is not the national motto, that is the reverse side of the National Seal, but that is not the national motto. But he says it’s not In God We Trust, it’s E pluribus unum. He just won’t even acknowledge God in traditional ways that we’re used to most presidents doing.
As we have pointed out before, even the National Day of Prayer Task Force admits that it was not until President George W. Bush that the White House hosted annual National Day of Prayer events, so Barton’s assertion that all presidents until Obama did so is patently false. As is his claim that Obama regularly refuses to include the phrase “endowed by their Creator” when quoting the Declaration of Independence:
For program host John Bona, Obama’s supposedly hostility toward all things Biblical was just further evidence that “no honest, sincere [Christian] can vote for Obama”:
Now, what I’m saying is if you’re a professing Christian, let me say this real clear, if you’re a profession Christian and you vote for somebody – in this case it’s President Obama – who stands for abortion and gay marriage and a host of other things were going to go through, you’re denying your Christian faith. Because why? Because Christians are to vote for those most likely to govern according to God’s stated laws and principles that’s outlined in Holy Scripture. So if that’s the standard we use, then there’s no honest, sincere person, a Christian, who can vote for Obama.
Now what I’m saying is there isn’t any candidate, including President Obama, that should receive a single vote from any true Christian.
