The Family Research Council is ratcheting up its calls for a formal apology from Politico, its parent company, and its national investigative correspondent Heidi Przybyla for comments the latter made on MSNBC smearing millions of Americans who believe their rights come from God — and not the government — as "Christian nationalists."
Last week, Townhall reported that Family Research Council President Tony Perkins — along with Catholic Vote President Brian Burch — sent a letter to Politico and its parent company, Axel Springer, demanding an apology for Przybyla's screed against those who hold the same view about our rights as America's founders.
Now, Townhall has learned exclusively, the Family Research Council has deployed mobile billboards on the streets outside Politico's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters and its parent company's Axel Springer Haus in New York City.
NEW: @FRCdc mobile billboards hit the streets outside Politico and its parent company's offices.
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) March 5, 2024
"It's all connected," @tperkins tells me of "the Left's coordinated use of 'Christian nationalism'... an intimidation game designed to silence Christians and suppress our votes." pic.twitter.com/t1gVXFjxc2
The mobile billboards come after Przybyla published an unapologetic explanation in Politico Magazine for her words on MSNBC — an explanation in which she only doubled down on her intention to target Americans of faith for seeking to live out their beliefs.
As a refresher, here's what Przybyla said on MSNBC last month:
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The thing that unites them as Christian nationalists, not Christians by the way, because Christian nationalists is very different, is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, do not come from any earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress, from the Supreme Court, they come from God.
In her subsequent piece for Politico Magazine titled "The Right Way to Cover the Intersection of Religion and Politics," Przybyla insisted she believes that "[e]very person's spiritual motivations are entitled to respect" with a significant caveat that "[o]nce these motivations take them onto the stage of politics and lawmaking that will affect the lives of fellow citizens, however, they will be treated the same as any other political actor."
According to Przybyla, that means "journalistic scrutiny" which, based on her appearance on MSNBC, means smearing Americans of faith for refusing to keep their beliefs to themselves — the modus operandi for mainstream journalists who declare the goodness of faith so long as its restricted to one's private home and place of worship but not brought into the public square. Plus, a heaping serving of what some in the mainstream wouldn't hesitate to call misinformation about the revolutionary principles upon which America was founded. Przybyla laughably referred to such rewriting of America's founding to smear America's faithful as "fair and well-reported coverage of their political aims."
Przybyla also fired another shot across the bow of the faith community in her non-apology offered as a rebuttal to justified criticism of her statements on MSNBC, warning that any "activists asserting a religious imprimatur for their policy agenda should be prepared" to answer how they are "respecting the American principle of separation of church and state" — something that does not appear in the Constitution and is an idea dragged kicking and screaming from history to suit progressives' anti-religious aims. The unapologetic Przybyla also warned that America's faithful must be "ready to play by the same rules that everyone in a democracy must as they try to influence our laws."
The Family Research Council and its president, Tony Perkins, are not taking such warnings lightly, nor willing to let such attacks on the faithful slide by — as demonstrated again with the mobile billboards targeting Politico.
"Make no mistake: It's all connected," Perkins told Townhall on Tuesday morning. "The Left's coordinated use of 'Christian nationalism' and the rise in hostility against houses of worship," he underscored, connecting a notable uptick in attacks on places of worship and escalating rhetoric targeting Americans of faith for believing bedrock principles established by our nation's founders.
"It's an intimidation game designed to silence Christians and suppress our votes," Perkins continued. "Now that the Left's election lawfare has misfired, look for them to pivot to plan B — voter suppression through intimidating Christian voters with 'Christian Nationalism' propaganda," he warned.
"Don't buy it," urged Perkins. Keep praying — keep voting — keep standing — for biblical truth."
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