{"id":6531,"date":"2006-02-04T09:29:32","date_gmt":"2006-02-04T14:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6531"},"modified":"2006-02-04T09:29:32","modified_gmt":"2006-02-04T14:29:32","slug":"the-little-school-district-that-roared-dodgeville-takes-on-falwells-lying-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-little-school-district-that-roared-dodgeville-takes-on-falwells-lying-lawyers\/","title":{"rendered":"The little school district that roared: Dodgeville takes on Falwell’s lying lawyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Editor’s Note: Yes, Morbo sort of retired<\/a> a few weeks ago, but he suggested he might come back on occasion, when he has something to contribute. Thankfully, today is one of those days. Enjoy. -CB<\/i>]<\/p>\n

Guest Post by Morbo<\/a><\/p>\n

I admire the folks at the Dodgeville School District in Wisconsin. They’ve got moxie.<\/p>\n

Dodgeville was one of the districts attacked by the religious right’s deceit brigade during the recent “war on Christmas” fandango<\/a>. Attorney Mat Staver, a stooge of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, accused the school of altering the words to “Silent Night” to remove religious references. Allegedly, this was done because the school feared endorsing religion.<\/p>\n

Fox News Channel practically provided team coverage of the supposed assault on the yuletide, with resident gasbags Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson leading the charge.<\/p>\n

It was all lies. Here’s what really happened: The school presented a play titled “The Little Tree’s Christmas Gift.” The play, copyrighted in 1988 by a church choir director of all people, is about a puny Christmas tree that pines for a home. It uses several familiar Christmas carols with different lyrics to fit the play’s theme of homelessness.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Staver’s campaign, the district was bombarded with hate mail and had to spend time answering queries from the media and the public. The school also posted a statement on its website in an effort to set the record straight. That statement bluntly called the Liberty Counsel’s claims “a fraud.”<\/p>\n

Now officials at the school have demanded that Liberty Counsel issue a public apology. They also seek $23,899.48 in compensation for costs that the district incurred in refuting Liberty Counsel’s lies.<\/p>\n

“Your dissemination of false and misleading information and your threats of specious and frivolous litigation resulted in enormous cost the district,” wrote school attorney Eileen A. Brownlee, in a letter to Liberty Counsel. “You have yet to present the facts either through a press release, one of your ‘alerts’ or through any other means. You used this red herring to attempt to collect money through the form of donations.”<\/p>\n

You go, girl!
\n
\nI doubt this gutsy district will ever see a dime from the Liberty Counsel. That sleaze operation isn’t in the truth business, after all. But it’s good to see someone take on these creeps and call them to account for their lies.<\/p>\n

As the Capital Times in Madison put it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Dodgeville officials have decided to hold groups such as the Liberty Counsel to account. And that is an appropriate act. Hopefully, by pressing for a very public apology and a retraction, Dodgeville will force the “war on Christmas” crowd to be a little more responsible next year. But, at the very least, the Dodgeville School District is serving its mission as an educational institution.<\/p>\n

By challenging the Liberty Counsel, it is teaching students to stand up to bullies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dodgeville is the second district to challenge Fox’s lies. Officials in Plano, Texas, requested an apology from Bill O’Blowhard after he spread wild tales about their school supposedly banning red and green holiday decorations.<\/p>\n

According to my trusty Rand-McNally atlas, Dodgeville has a population of 3,458. If this little town can stand up to the Liberty Counsel, others can too. The public school districts and communities unfairly smeared in the bogus “war on Christmas” need to sit up and take notice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Editor’s Note: Yes, Morbo sort of retired a few weeks ago, but he suggested he might come back on occasion, when he has something to contribute. Thankfully, today is one of those days. Enjoy. -CB] Guest Post by Morbo I admire the folks at the Dodgeville School District in Wisconsin. They’ve got moxie. Dodgeville was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}