Gingrich earns Pants on Fire for stimulus claim

In a fundraising e-mail, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says that President Barack Obama is anti-Christian.

“In fact, buried inside Obama’s trillion-dollar stimulus package is anti-Christian legislation that will stop churches from using public schools for meeting on Sundays, as well as Boy Scouts and student Bible study groups,” Gingrich wrote.

The e-mail is part of Gingrich’s fundraising efforts for an organization called Renewing American Leadership, which will “bring moral leadership back to our nation.”

We’ve looked before at a similar claim that the stimulus had an

antireligion clause

. It’s based on the part of the bill that provides $3.5 billion for public and private colleges and universities to modernize, renovate or repair facilities. The bill says money may not be used for buildings that are “used for sectarian instruction or religious worship or a school or department of divinity; or in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.”

But we found nothing to support Gingrich’s claim that Boy Scouts and church groups would be prohibited from meeting at schools. See our full item

here

.