I think that is has, by now, been pretty well established that David Barton is a Religious Right pseudo-historian with a stunning disregard for the veracity of his statements who is willing to sacrifice truthfulness for the benefit of promoting his right-wing agenda.
We have watched countless hours of Barton's standard presentation over the years; all of them very similar but also regularly including different little nuggest of nonsense that compel us to keep watching because we never know when Barton is going to drop in something new and ridiculous.
Back in 2008, Barton delivered just such a presentation to Pastor Miles McPherson's Rock Church in California and the video was recently uploaded to the church's Vimeo account ... and we are grateful that it was because it contains one of the most absurdly false statements we have ever seen Barton make.
Barton was discussing the importance of Christians voting and voting their values because it is the values of those who vote that are reflected in Congress. Saying that Christians had stayed home in 2006, Barton said the result was that Congress then felt free to try and pass things like Hate Crimes Legislation that protected gays and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
And then, in typical Barton fashion, he flat-out lied as he asserted that Hate Crimes legislation was designed specifically to imprison pastors for preaching against homosexuality from their pulpits while the purpose of ENDA was to force churches to hire gays:
It should be pointed out that Hate Crimes Legislation was signed into law in October 2009 and not one pastor, priest, or preacher has yet been charged with a hate crime for preaching against homosexuality.
