Mass resignations from APT’s attendant committees followed the firings of former Executive Director Allan Pizzato and Deputy Director Pauline Howland, and last week a pair of petitions carrying approximately 114,000 signatures were delivered to the APT headquarters to protest the “misleading and hateful programming” APT is considering airing.

One of the petitions came from Faithful America, a religious organization focused on social justice issues. The other came from Credo Action, a three million-strong group centered on social issues.

The programming in question is David Barton’s “American Heritage Series,” which infuses Christian themes and motivations in tales of American history. Barton is one of the most public, and controversial, historians in the nation, and is considered “a key bridge between the mainstream political right and radical-right religious ideology,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whom Barton once advised, has said that he “almost wished” that Americans should be “forced — forced at gunpoint no less — to listen to every David Barton message.”