ACLU Defends David Barton's Right to Advertise Bad History

But does the ACLU have to sanitize what Wallbuilders is?

So the ACLU and David Barton walked into a bar…

I doubt they will walk together into a bar, but they are going to court together on the same side. David Barton wants him some free speech and he has gotten the godless left to defend him in court. According to a press release out yesterday, the American Civil Liberties Union is challenging “the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) advertising restrictions” on David Barton “as violations of the First Amendment.”

Among others, Barton wanted to put up this ad which uses the famous painting by Henry Brueckner of George Washington praying in the snow at Valley Forge:

This painting and the story it implies have been debunked numerous times. John Fea, of Messiah University did a nice job of fact-checking it in his book, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation. This article the online Journal of the American Revolution cites Fea and ties the story back to Mason Weems, the same fabulist who wrote the cherry tree story about Washington in his popular books about him in the early 1800s. In short, this story most likely didn’t happen and is disinformation. However, it does not appear that WMATA forbids ads based on disinformation (other than medical information). Another problem for the transit authority is that they refused ads which only pointed interested people back to Wallbuilders with no obvious disinformation, and they have accepted other issue oriented ads in the past. I hate to say it, but I think Barton may win this one.

Unfortunately, in the process, he has already won one public relations war which did not need to happen. Note how the ACLU describes Wallbuilders.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of WallBuilder Presentations (“WallBuilders”), an organization advocating for Americans to understand their history and the important role religion played in the founding of our nation, which sought to advertise on the side of WMATA Metro buses.

This is not, in fact, true. Wallbuilders does not “advocate for Americans to understand their history.” David Barton and Wallbuilders obscures and reimagines American history. He does not want Americans to understand all of their history. Sometimes, he leaves some of the history out when he tells it, as when he left out part of the 1782 Virginia Law on Manumission when he wrote about Thomas Jefferson’s record on slavery. Sometimes he makes things up, like when he says Jefferson cut out and pasted end-to-end all of the words of Jesus (red letters) in a little book for Indians to read. Barton will even tell Americans that the Constitution quotes the Bible verbatim. Does someone who does those things really want “Americans to understand their history?”

So if the ACLU must represent misinformation as free speech, then go for it. But must they lie to defend lying?

I wrote to ask them about it and I haven’t heard anything yet, but if I do, I will let you know.

In the meantime, head on over to Telling Jefferson Lies and listen to the trailer for the podcast series. Another trailer comes out next week with the first episode in January.