Hero Christmas Defenders Besiege School After Fox Runs Fake 'War On Christmas' Story

OMG you guys, did you hear about the school in Georgia that's so bent on removing any trace of Christianity that it forced kids and teachers to take down the Christmas cards that they used to put up in the school hallways? It's really terrible, better call that school and give 'em a piece of your mind! And so, after Fox Radio Christmas Panic Expert Todd Starnes announced "Georgia School Confiscates Christmas Cards" Tuesday, brave defenders of Jesus' birthday inundated Brooklet Elementary School in Bulloch County, Georgia, with angry calls and emails -- it probably helped that, good journalist that he is, Starnes included theschool's webpage in the first line of his story.

All that vitriol really came as a surprise to Brooklet principal Marlin Baker, who hadn't confiscated any Christmas cards at all. What actually happened was that the school moved a poster in the hall where teachers usually hang their family Christmas cards. One of the school's teachers was concerned about privacy, so the poster was moved from the hall to the faculty workroom. Neither Starnes nor Fox News contacted the school to verify their story about rampant Christmas card censorship, and the rest of the school is loaded with the usual festive detritus you'd expect in an elementary school. Still, something was moved, and the Internet Outrage Machine was already activated. Bet that Starnes feels pretty silly now, huh?

The school district released a statement on Tuesday explaining the situation in very clear language, stating that nothing was confiscated and that the faculty Christmas card poster had been relocated "due to  a legitimate, personal privacy concern raised by one of the school’s staff members,"  not banned, burned, or censored. So Starnes updated his piece, leaving out all those boring details and selectively quoting the press release:

The Board of Education released a statement late Tuesday denying the moving of the Christmas cards had anything to do with the “current open and ongoing discussions that the school system is having with local citizens about religious liberties and expression.”

Because why would you want to ruin a perfectly good War on Christmas story by admitting that your story had completely screwed the festively decorated pooch?

But who knows? It's the season for Festivus Miracles. We'll let you know when Todd Starnes apologizes. We hear he's really big on personal responsibility.

Here's the report from Georgia TV station WSAV: