Whenever a new tale of supposed anti-Christian "persecution" begins to sweep through the Religious Right echo chamber, the chances are probably pretty good that it originated with The Liberty Institute. So it was only fitting that LI's president Kelly Shackelford kicked off the afternoon session of today's Values Voter Summit by citing at least three of these false tales as proof that Christians are under attack in America today:
The first claim about the young girl who was supposedly told she was not allowed to pray before eating her lunch turned out to be totally false, as it was a story that was completely ginned up by Liberty Institute, Todd Starnes, and the man in charge of marketing Starnes' latest book about ant-Christian persecution.
The second incident Shackelford cited is a myth that has been floating around Religious Right circles for nearly twenty years and was debunked nearly as long ago when school officials explained that the student in question was disciplined for fighting in the lunch room, not for praying.
The final claim about Sgt. Phillip Monk is something that Shackelford has been promoting for several years now, mainly by fundamentally misrepresenting what actually took place.
It is pretty telling that Shackelford's narrative of anti-Christian persecution in America relies on multiple incidents that are demonstrably false.
