NFL superstar quarterback Drew Brees did the unthinkable. He encouraged children to “live their faith” and participate in “Bring Your Bible to School Day” on Oct. 3. Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family sponsors the occasion, which Brees helped promote in a 22-second video.

Far-left media, bloggers and social media pundits are apoplectic over Brees promoting the Christian faith. Even a few quasi-mainstream media organizations are attacking Brees for associating with a “hate group.”

No way will the left allow a modern celebrity to promote Christian beliefs without trying to destroy him. Let’s not forget the media’s treatment of former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, who thanked his “Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” during interviews.

Newsweek published an all-caps headline under the category “news” that said: “DREW BREES, NEW ORLEANS SAINTS QUARTERBACK, RECORDS VIDEO PRODUCED BY ANTI-GAY GROUP FOCUS ON THE FAMILY.

“Drew Brees Records Video for Anti-LGBT Religious Organization,” claims a headline in the New Orleans-based Big Easy Magazine.

The story went on to falsely accuse Brees of encouraging Christian children “to convert their fellow students at school.” He did no such thing. He asked students to “share God’s love with their friends.”

New York-based Fatherly.com — a popular parenting magazine for millennials — published the headline, “Drew Brees Supported the Bigots at Focus on the Family. So Where’s the Apology?”

The Fatherly article by Patrick A. Coleman associates Brees with “The quasi-cult leader of Focus on the Family.” That leader: James Dobson. That man, the author assures us, is guilty of “really hating gay people.”

There’s just one problem with that attempt at guilt by association. Dobson left Focus on the Family in 2010. He has no affiliation with the organization. Jim Daly has led Focus since — the same Jim Daly who teamed with Ted Trimpa, a Colorado pioneer in the gay rights movement, to work against human trafficking.

Fatherly cited the Southern Poverty Law Center to further denigrate Brees and Focus on the Family. Turns out Dobson long ago founded the Family Research Council, which the Law Center blacklisted as a hate group. The Family Research Council separated from Focus 28 years ago, but let’s not let another inconvenient fact stop a journalistic hit piece.

Media need to get up to speed. No informed person — no matter how progressive — cares what the Southern Poverty Law Center claims. The law firm is embattled by multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuits. The organization’s disgraced founder, Morris Dees, recently left the firm under accusations he fomented racial- and gender-based workplace hostility.

Brees — under siege by unfair headlines, articles, and hateful left-wing tweets — went public to defend himself. If Focus ever disparaged the LGBT community, he was unaware.

“The only thing I was promoting was encouraging kids to bring their Bibles to school on national ‘Bring Your Bible to School Day,’ to live out your faith with confidence…,” Brees explained.

And that is the true concern of the secularist left. They don’t want children living out their family’s faith with confidence. They must discourage such talk, and facts will be damned when they try.

Brees added: “I know that there are, unfortunately, Christian organizations out there that are involved in that kind of thing. And, to me, that is totally against what being a Christian is all about. Being a Christian is love, it’s forgiveness, it’s respecting all, it’s accepting all.”

That may be a bridge too far, Mr. Brees. “Accepting all” would include accepting pedophiles, violent criminals, and racists.

However, we know what Brees meant. He passes no judgment on the basis of sexual orientation. He does not judge or disparage individuals who don’t look, act and believe just like him.

Brees advocates a life of love and compassion, as promoted by Jesus. He wants to live and let live. His critics, meanwhile, have zero tolerance for a man who promotes Christian faith and the Bible. They exude anti-Christian bigotry. Enlightened society should frown on that.

The Gazette Editorial Board

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