Father Of Child Told To Not Pray Just Happens To Be Publishing Fox News Religion Reporter’s Book

It is a small world after all.

A week ago a video showed up on YouTube featuring a five-year old girl who — on camera — says she was at school, about to pray before eating her lunch when an unnamed school official told her she wasn’t allowed to pray in school. In the video, the girl is sitting between her mother and father, and the mother actually chastises the child for not telling her sooner.

The school, by the way, staunchly denies this ever happened, and the family reportedly has pulled her out of school so she cannot identify the teacher/administrator who supposedly denied her the right to pray. The school also says it has no policy against prayer.

Fast forward just a few days later, and Fox News’ religion reporter, Todd Starnes (image, top), writes an article,”Dad: Teacher Told My Kid to Stop Lunchtime Prayer.” (The parents, by the way, titled the video, “Lunch lady said I can’t pray,” but why would Starnes let facts get in the way of an opportunity to demonize teachers?

But as Kyle Mantyla at Right Wing Watch — which reported on the video earlier in the day –noted yesterday afternoon, it turns out Todd Starnes has something in common with this five-year old.

As we noted this morning, school officials are denying the incident took place, but now that the story is gaining some national attention, local media outlets have begun reporting on it and revealing interesting things … such as the fact that this young girl’s father, Marcos Perez, just so happens to be the Vice President of Sales at the Christian publishing house that is publishing Todd Starnes’ next book:

School officials have not interviewed the girl, who has been pulled from kindergarten at Carillon by her parents, who said they intend to home school her.

Her father is vice president of sales at Charisma House, a Lake Mary-based Christian book publisher. The company is currently promoting the book “God Less America: Real Stories from the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values,” by Todd Starnes.

Imagine that.

No one at the school says they told the girl to not pray, and all of a sudden Todd Starnes has another column — and more “material” for his upcoming book, God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values.

Not only that, but Starnes neglected to note his relationship with the subject of the article. It was only after reader comments at the foot of the article, including one by blogger Joe Jervis, pointed out the sheer “SUPER AMAZING coincidence,” did Starnes’ editor finally show up to add the half-hearted disclaimer you can see now at the top of the article under the photo. That disclaimer merry reads: “Marcos Perez is employed by Charisma House – which is publishing Todd Starnes’ next book.” Perez, based on the editor’s note, could be a secretary, janitor, accountant, or the Vice President of Sales. There’s a big difference there, don’t you think?

To verify that Starnes did not mention the relationship, we pulled up a Google cached version from March 31. We also have a screenshot, which shows there was no disclaimer originally:

This is one more example of Starnes having gone into the workings of a public school and “terrorized” them. Fortunately some schools learn to fight back against Starnes. Right Wing Watch calls Starnes a serial fabricator and “notorious for ginning up these sorts of fake controversies.”

Starnes in the recent past has suggested President Obama is secretly gay, suggested Obama only wants gay athletes on the US Olympics teams, exploded because President Obamas 9/11 proclamation did not include the word “God.” Starnes has claimed same-sex marriage will lead to one-man one-cat (or dog) marriage and a rise in sexually-transmitted diseases, and he responded to the news that NBA center Jason Collins is gay by tweeting, “The NBA is turning into GLEE,” and “Have any professional athletes announced they are heterosexual today?” Starnes called a transgender woman a “burly man wearing a dress,” and upon hearing the U.S. Supreme Court ruled DOMA unconstitutional, Starnes tweeted, ”Supreme Court overrules God,” and ”Won’t be long before they outlaw the Bible as hate speech.”

Previously:

Fox News’ Religion Reporter: Grammys Wedding Of Gay And Straight Couples Was ‘Intolerance, Bigotry And Hatred’

Georgia School: ‘Vicious’ Fox News ‘Christmas Card Censorship’ Report ‘Terrorized’ Us