HELENA, Mont. – Montana teachers union officials would “rather be for a part-time plagiarist than a full-time creationist.”

That’s the spin Montana’s teachers union boss Eric Feaver is putting on his union’s endorsement of U.S. Sen. John Walsh, despite recent news reports that the lawmaker plagiarized a research paper he wrote for his master’s degree at U.S. Army War College, Media Trackers reports.

“I’m going to plagiarize now a comment made to me yesterday, this is a direct quite, ‘I’d rather be for a part time plagiarist than a full time creationist,” Feaver told the news site.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

The Montana Education Association-Montana Federation of Teachers union posted a comment on the group’s Facebook page late last month that offers excuses for the lawmaker’s plagiarism, and criticizes his opponent for the coming election, Republican Congressman Steve Daines.

The post, authored by Feaver, contends Daines is to blame for the government shutdown, highlights Daines’ opposition to abortion, alleges the lawmaker wants to replace science with creationism and denigrates his religious views, while presenting Walsh as a defender of the “social compact” and “good government,” Media Trackers reports.

Feaver’s rant also offers excuses for the plagiarism.

“I spent years preparing and practicing to be an academic. In my undergraduate and graduate studies I learned that few ideas are so remarkably new that no one had ever thought of them before … and written about them, before,” Feaver wrote.

“No completely unique academic twist of phrase exists. Hence the flood of footnotes that renders too many graduate school papers damned near unreadable. In this context, only he who is without sin may cast the first stone. Just saying.”

What, exactly, he’s “just saying” isn’t clear.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

Those who commented on the union’s Facebook post, however, seem to think the plagiarism offense is enough of a reason to cast their vote for someone else, drawing the obvious conclusion that “it is a bad example for a teacher’s union to be supporting plagiarism,” according to the news site.

Feaver told Media Trackers the teachers union doesn’t condone plagiarism.

“In context of academic preparation, it is big deal, I’m not disagreeing you,” Feaver said. “Do I think he should have plagiarized, in this common term, whole sections without attribution? No, I don’t, and I think he has seriously damaged his campaign and himself.”

“I’m just trying to place it into the political context in which it exists, and to allow this event, plagiarism, to effectively trump what it is that Walsh would do if he were to continue as our U.S. Senator, and then somehow conclude Daines would be good for Montana, if he beats Walsh…I’m just not there,” he said, according to the news site.

Media Trackers also set the record straight about Feaver’s assertion that Daines “wants creationism taught in public schools.

“Warnings that Daines ‘wants creationism taught in public schools’ stem from a 2012 interview with Montana Public Radio in which Daines said he personally believes that children should learn about both ‘evolution theory’ and ‘creation theory,’ with the disclaimer that decisions about curriculum should be made by local school boards,” the news site reports.