Strangely, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has failed to respond to the sporting offer from Discovery Institute’s Dr. John West, tendered in these pages, of a $10 Starbucks gift card OR a free DVD of Privileged Species if only FFRF corrected its own hypocrisy.

Along with the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, the group has been calling for a professor at Georgia Southern University, Tom McMullen, to be censored for allegedly promoting theism to his students — even as FFRF issues no protest when a professor like evolutionary biologist David Barash boasts of using his own public university classroom to advocate atheism to his students. Dr. West wrote:

I’d like to issue a challenge to the leadership of the FFRF: If you are serious about stopping college professors from pushing their metaphysical agendas in the classroom, send a letter to the University of Washington demanding that it investigate and censor David Barash for his promotion of atheism — and then issue a press release about it.

Could it be that the good folks at FFRF are holding out for a $15 gift card?

That could keep some lucky staffer supplied with Vanilla Bean Frappuccinos for nearly a full business week. Be that as it may, the student-reported online news source The College Fix is prominently covering the case, and our response to it:

An intelligent-design group that has defended professors under fire for questioning evolutionary science declined to explicitly back McMullen, instead focusing on his critics.

In a post for the Discovery Institute’s Evolution News & Views blog, Vice President John West said the “campaign against Professor McMullen reeks of hypocrisy.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation “expresses outrage because it seems to believe that critiquing Darwinian theory is an implicit method of preaching religion,” but is silent “when atheist professors explicitly misuse science to promote atheism in the classroom,” West wrote.

West noted that an evolutionary biologist at the University of Washington, David Barash, penned a column for the New York Times in September explaining that every fall he gives his students “The Talk” — an extended attack on religious belief.

“The more of we know of evolution, the more unavoidable is the conclusion that living things, including human beings, are produced by a natural, totally amoral process, with no indication of a benevolent, controlling creator,” Barash wrote that he tells students.

“In other words, Barash actually boasts of pushing atheism in the classroom in the name of science,” West wrote. “I have yet to see any letters or press releases from FFRF demanding an investigation of Barash.”

In all seriousness, gift card or not, if the Freedom From Religion Foundation had any integrity, they would respond and do exactly what John West says they ought to do.

Image credit: 401 (K) 2013/Flickr.