After show pony lawyer Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel began crowing that his client Kim Davis had a private audience with Pope Francis, skepticism ensued.

The Southern Poverty Law Center now lists Staver’s firm as a hate group.

Davis is the Rowan County clerk who refuses to acknowledge the U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing for same sex marriage. Her supporters say that the media is needlessly bashing her by prolonging the story.

Every day brings a new chapter. Davis told ABC News “Just knowing the pope is on track with what we’re doing and agreeing, you know, kind of validates everything.”

But there was no agreement or validation.

An official Vatican statement clarified that Davis was one of dozens invited by the Vatican ambassador, but that the only actual audience Pope Francis granted was to one of his former students, an openly gay man (and his family and partner of 19 years).

It appears that a controversial archbishop is at the center of this story, and that Pope Francis was likely unaware of Kim Davis’s story.

The fact that so many people are bamboozled by Davis’ lying lawyer is indeed a news story. UK law school grad Mat Staver built an implausible tale and now that the truth is known, some people don’t want to accept it. They enjoyed the lies.

Barry Lynn, executive director of the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, opines that Staver’s canonization of Kim Davis is a cultural cancer. “When you make heroes out of people who refuse to accept the rule of law and who fail to acknowledge the dignity of other human beings, you are on a very dangerous path.”

To quote the Bible: the truth shall set you free. (John 8:32)