Even though they haven’t offered a shred of new evidence, Kim Davis’ attorneys are adamantly insisting 100,000 people in Peru went to a football stadium to pray for her.
Earlier today NCRM brought you the story of Kim Davis‘ Liberty Counsel attorneys claiming that 100,000 people in Peru gathered in a football stadium to pray for her “while she was in jail,” as chairman Mat Staver told an audience Saturday night at the Values Voter Summit.
LOOK:Â Did Kim Davis’ Attorney Lie That 100,000 Christians In Peru Gathered To Pray For Her?
Staver and his Liberty Counsel conservative Christian law firm today responded with several versions of a press release to a ThinkProgress report that deftly discredits Staver’s claim, one which was also made by Matt Barber, the editor of the far-right wing website BarbWire and a current or former Liberty Counsel member.
“Many churches canceled their Sunday services to attend the prayer meeting in the soccer stadium,” states Staver’s press release insisting 100,000 Peruvians indeed attended a prayer rally for Davis. “While meetings of 70,000 to 100,000 Christians in a soccer stadium may shock people in the United States, they are much more common in Peru. Oftentimes such gatherings do not appear on traditional media any more than the weekly church services in the United States appear on television.”
“People underestimate the worldwide support expressed by Christians for Kim Davis. The conflict of her faith with a governmental policy on the matter of marriage has universal interest, because this conflict is not just in the United States,” Staver claims.
That, in a nutshell, is Staver’s explanation why ThinkProgress was unable to find any evidence of the rally. Because, on the one hand, it’s very common for 100,000 people to gather to pray in Peru, even over an event in the U.S. And on the other hand, because there was such “universal interest” in the Kim Davis story, not a single news outlet in Peru covered the event, and no photos could be found on Facebook or other social media.
The video of Staver making the claim is here.
As Zack Ford at ThinkProgress pointed out in his original story, the photo Staver claims was taken of 100,000 Peruvians praying for Kim Davis while she was in jail almost certainly was taken at a five-day festival in May of 2014.
In an update to his original story, Ford concludes that Liberty Counsel’s “claim is even less believable than before.”
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Image: Screenshot via FRC Action/YouTube