NBC News Attacks Christian Groups Receiving Paycheck Protection Program Funds

A recent NBC News headline screamed, “Accused hate groups receive pandemic aid: 14 groups identified as hate groups benefited from the PPP program.” A few days later, NBC Out, published an even more scurrilous headline, “Anti-gay nonprofits, businesses received millions in Covid-19 aid.”

The articles go on to list mainstream Christian groups, individuals and businesses with traditional beliefs about marriage and sexuality that received money from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The stories also illustrate how the mainstream media so often promulgates an anti-faith narrative and attacks those who believe basic biblical truths.

Those truths include foundational Judeo-Christian teachings, believed for thousands of years: God created us male and female – and people can’t change their sex; marriage is the lifelong, covenantal union of a husband and wife; and children do best when raised in an intact family by their mother and father.

NBC Out, for those who don’t follow them on Twitter or Facebook, is an NBC outlet that “showcases feature stories, original videos and other unique content about, and of interest to, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.”

From reading the headlines, you would think there existed some official, unbiased governmental or judicial organization that decides what groups are “hate groups.”

No. Instead the network that gives “the news you want, when you want it” cited the widely discredited, bigoted and anti-Christian Southern Poverty Law Center, as if it were a legitimate source.

The reporters also cited the Anti-Defamation League, whose mission is “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Evidently that “all” includes LGBT-identified groups, but not faith organizations and Christian business owners.

NBC did what mainstream media outlets routinely do: It linked together white supremacist and anti-Semitic groups with mainstream Christian organizations. In doing so, the media perpetuates the narrative of a false equivalency, associating those with deeply held Judeo-Christian beliefs about marriage and sexuality with groups that actually spew hatred.

The network even managed to smear Trump supporters with the online post. Directly under the headline, there’s an image that the network described this way: “A demonstrator holds a sign reading ‘Stop the Hate’ at a protest against President Donald Trump’s visit following a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.”

NBC revealed its deep left-wing bias and animosity, implying that white supremacist groups, Christian organizations, Christian business owners, mass murderers and Trump supporters are all the same – hateful, bigoted people who foment and cause violence. It’s doubtful that the El Paso shooter was someone who believed in and followed Jesus Christ.

Reporters used data from the Small Business Administration to list businesses and groups who received relief funds. Many of the businesses pointed to have been the subject of lawsuits from LGBT activists working to stifle free speech and religious freedom.

Here are some of the individuals and organizations the two articles listed:

• The American College of Pediatricians is a medical association of doctors and health care professionals that “advocates for policies that promote the optimal health and well-being of children.”
• Arlene’s Flowers is the Washington store whose owner, Barronelle Stutzman, is fighting a legal battle to maintain her freedoms of religion and expression.
• Catholic Social Services, in Philadelphia, is battling at the Supreme Court for the freedom to place children in foster care with a married mother and father.
• Concerned Women for America is an organization that “works to protect and promote Biblical values and Constitutional principles through prayer, education, and advocacy.”
• James Dobson Family Institute has a mission to “help preserve and promote the institution of the family and the biblical principles on which it is based.”
• First Liberty Institute is a nonprofit legal group that has successfully argued religious freedom cases throughout the nation.
• Harris Funeral Homes lost a religious freedom legal case – and hundreds of thousands of dollars – when the Supreme Court redefined “sex” in employment nondiscrimination laws to include homosexuality and transgenderism.

There’s more, as NBC lists Christian groups like the American Family Association, the Center for Family and Human Rights, Liberty Counsel, the Pacific Justice Institute and the Ruth Institute.

For NBC, those who fight for religious freedom and free speech, provide help for families and children, and want to run their businesses according to their religious beliefs are beyond the pale and should not receive any government assistance.

NBC quotes Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, who said these groups “exploit the system” to receive PPP money to continue their work.

NBC Out goes even further, quoting Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, a supposedly nonpartisan group. He told the LGBT outlet, “it’s ‘shameful’ that the Trump administration provided pandemic relief funds to ‘organizations promoting bigotry, intolerance, and hate’ with ‘so many small businesses forced to shutter since the start of the pandemic.’”

Herrig added, “It is hard to find a clearer example of the Trump administration’s warped priorities than allowing countless mom-and-pop shops to go under without proper relief while bailing out wealthy and well-connected anti-LGBTQ enterprises on Americans’ dime.” So much for being nonpartisan.

NBC is clear: If you’re an LGBT activist, you’re with us. If you’re a Christian or conservative medical group, business owner, nonprofit ministry or legal aid organization, you should be excluded from polite company.

It’s a narrative that has been promulgated by the media for decades. Christians should be aware – and should speak out against such blatant bigotry, bias, discrimination and intolerance.

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