With Todd Starnes and the Second Coming of Barney Fife

Leeds High School marching band ostensibly on the night in question which resulted in substantial protest


High school football is a religion in the Deep South. So, it’s really no surprise that the halftime show at Leeds High School is a religious experience.

The Alabama high school marching band’s show includes classical music, pop rock and several traditional hymns.

ToddStarnes.com:  School Marching Band Stands Up to Tone Deaf Atheists

Right up front he acknowledges the crime but it makes no difference to him.  It would be honest if he admitted he rejects the law but that isn't how it goes and he rejects tone death atheists who are the real problem ... but really it's because no-one likes those godawful marching bands.

Do you seriously believe Todd Starnes has CDs full of marching band music at home and he invites people with great enthusiasm to come over for a marching band listening party?  Do you seriously believe anyone would come?


The response wasn't too surprising.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based group of perpetually offended atheists, agnostics and free-thinkers, fired off a letter to the school district – warning that the halftime show violates the law.

“Turning a school-sponsored marching band performance into a religious event violates the constitutional separation of religion and government,” the FFRF wrote.

- TS

That's all true but Starnes already made clear it makes no difference so we want to get to the insults which came instead.


Still, the atheists are a defiant bunch of bullies. They say public school marching bands are not permitted to toot their horns to any religious tunes (and that goes for the oboe and piccolo, too).

- TS

That's the part which gets me snarked and you know the history that atheists responsible for the situation were the Forefathers who weren't so granular about religion as today. In general they regarded religion as being the province of Atheists and Deists and they didn't have the panoply of faiths which exists today.

You have heard all that and it's a drag but we have no case on Todd Starnes since he's got a cushy job at Fox News where he gets lovely packages of strawberries each payday so long as he keeps writing more of the same.  More power to him and have a ball doing it but the shot about being tone deaf wasn't necessary.

Surely he realizes atheists are not tone deaf and it hurts their feelings when they're accused of it.


Zen Yogi:  you're not an atheist so what does it matter?

I loathe marching bands as well so that makes me a tone deaf atheist with them.  My perception of pitch isn't perfect but it's not too shabby.

Zen Yogi:  I wondered how long it would take to make this about you

Well, it is and it isn't, Yogi, since many others are in the same observational circumstance.  To my taste, the rejection of marching bands has nothing to do with religion since they wind up making awful music because they're using a sound palette which is strident and shrieking from all that brass.


Zen Yogi:  the case really isn't on Todd Starnes?

Nah, since he's a Fox News mouthpiece and Mike Huckabee is another one but Huckabee doesn't seem to grok whether he's a Baptist Preacher, an ex-Governor for Arkansas, or the Second Coming of Barney Fife.  He and Starnes are mouthpieces only Starnes is more single-focused on religion.  There are many such mouthpieces so picking on any one of them accomplishes nothing.

Zen Yogi:  because marching bands are the real problem?

That's right, Yogi.