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Religious Freedom Day: Media Reveals Religious Bias against Christian School
Last week, during Religious Freedom Day (which President Bill Clinton formally recognized beginning in 1993), a majority of media outlets took the occasion to reveal or amplify their hostility toward constitutionally protected religious liberty. With near uniformity, the stories denounced Immanuel Christian School in Springfield, Virginia, for its statement of faith.
At the center of most stories was a frequently repeated but fundamentally flawed narrative told through a series of one-sided quotes: a private Christian school shouldn’t have the right to hire, staff, teach, or create community among Bible-believing Christians because the loving, life-giving absolutes of God’s truth supposedly equate to “hate.”
The National Center for Life and Liberty is actively fighting for Christians in court against defamation (and religion-based discrimination) by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Amazon.com for unjustly characterizing (and treating) a faithful legacy ministry as a “hate group.”
God’s Word on Trial
Stories designed to gin up controversy criticized Second Lady Karen Pence for returning to her role of teaching art at a private Christian school. Several outlets’ stories featured headlines characterizing the school as “Anti-LGBT” or that it “bars” or “bans” homosexual “students,” “employees,” or “people.”
Immanuel Christian School’s code of conduct simply reflects biblical beliefs about marriage. Several outlets disparaged the Christian school for its stance that “God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between a man and a woman who are married to each other” and expects the school’s students, parents, and employees to agree. The school supports other “controversial” Christian doctrines such as the Trinity, the infallibility of Scripture, and mankind’s need of a Savior from sin.
Religious Freedom Day commemorates the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom passed in 1786. One of the three accomplishments Thomas Jefferson chose for his epitaph, the statute he authored expressly supports Mrs. Pence’s role in living out her religious beliefs, even as a public servant. It specifies “no man shall be . . . restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.”
Thank you for your partnership in supporting religious liberty as the National Center for Life and Liberty fights for the rights of Christian schools and other ministries. As we defend D. James Kennedy Ministries from defamation by the SPLC and tech giant Amazon.com, we need your continued prayers and encouragement to help protect Christian ministries—especially our churches. Your faithful support will help Christian organizations maximize ministry and minimize liability.
