Can it get any more pathetic in the Lone Star State?
Christian conservatives win, children lose: Texas textbooks will teach public school students that the Founding Fathers based the Constitution on the Bible, and the American system of democracy was inspired by Moses.
On Friday the Republican-controlled Texas State Board of Education voted along party lines 10-5 to approve the biased and inaccurate textbooks. The vote signals a victory for Christian conservatives in Texas, and a disappointing defeat for historical accuracy and the education of innocent children.
The textbooks were written to align with instructional standards that the Board of Education approved back in 2010 with the explicit intention of forcing social studies teaching to adhere to a conservative Christian agenda. The standards require teachers to emphasize America’s so called “Christian heritage.”In essence, Christian conservatives in Texas have successfully forced a false historical narrative into public school textbooks that portray Moses as an influence on the Constitution and the Old Testament as the root of democracy.
I hope the Dallas frickin’ Cowboys go 0-16 this year. Maybe Moses can be their third-string quarterback.
Was it Texas that threw out Thomas Jefferson and added John Calvin as the greater influence on American democracy?
Yeah, something like that.
for the obviously God inspired John Calhoun
I’m not a constitutional lawyer, but I cannot believe this Christianist nonsense will withstand scrutiny on establishment of religion grounds. The ACLU should file suit immediately to stop this. I think it can be disposed of in the same way that the creationists have been prevented from inserting junk science into science texts. It just isn’t supported by the facts.
I doubt there is a single bit of text in the historical debates about ratification of our constitution that explicitly refers to “Moses” and his “founding role.” The whole idea would be laughable, if it wasn’t so outrageous.
The same can be said about Texas itself.
Hey, I was just doing that. I thought Madison’s notes of the convention would be a good source. Here’s a partial hit count:
Moses: 0
Jesus: 0
Bible: 0
Commandment: 0
Not to mention that many of the Founders were Enlightenment rationalists or deists with a “prime mover” sense of God, at best. Their notions of Democracy came from Pericles and Athens, not “Moses,” fer Chrissakes. They were acutely aware of the need for separation of Church and State. which is why the Establishment Clause is in the 1st Amendment.
And lets look at the Preamble to the Constitution:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
So, like, where’s the reference to the Old Testament and Moses?
This sh*t crosses the line into unconstitutionality so much that, as Booman states, it is pathetic. Time to rock these rubes back on their heels with a constitutional challenge in federal court.
“He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.”
George Orwell
double plus excellent
>>I hope the Dallas frickin’ Cowboys go 0-16 this year.
which is no different than what you would have said last season.
Article dated November 2014. Does anyone know if this has been reversed?
It’s as if the internet didn’t even exist. You can easily find, for instance, James Madison’s journals of the constitutional convention at Project Gutenberg, and if you search the text you’ll find that the name “Moses” doesn’t appear even once. Nor does “Bible” or “Jesus.”
You do get some hits if you search for “religion,” though.
Then again it’s equally obvious if you just read the goddamn Constitution that Moses had nothing to do with it. You’ve got a blatant contradiction between the first amendment and the first commandment, for one thing. If you’re going to insist that the Constitution is biblically inspired in spite of that, you aren’t going to let a little thing like the historical record stand in your way.
Not to mention the other states that purchase Texas textbooks because of the discounted price.
You get what you pay for.
It’s actually a bit worse than that. Texas and California are the largest states that have statewide textbook adoption. Ergo, whatever books those states choose become instant bestsellers.
Now, if you’re on a little school board out there in the rest of America, and you’re deciding on textbooks, aren’t you going to look at the bestsellers?
That’s why this is crucially important. Texas and California drive textbook sales throughout the nation. Now, of course California will counter this move, but I guarantee you that schools in most other states will be using this bogus book just because Texas bought it. That’s also why the Christianists trying to skew the textbooks concentrate on Texas and have done for decades–not just because Texas is more open to their arguments, but because as Texas goes, so goes much of the nation.
Word needs to get out on it. Yes, there needs to be a high-profile lawsuit.
I’d walk over hot coals to vote to give Texas back to Mexico.
what did Mexico ever do to you?
From Bush to Perry to Abbott…I think the answer is “Just watch them.”
BTW, the part about Jade Helm 15 that got Texans really riled up was the exercises coordinating the military with local law enforcement. Pressed their “posse comitatus” buttons, it did.
The long term goal of the conservative religious is to get religion established so that religion trumped the Constitution and they can put all those people back in their places. Besides, the Bible doesn’t condemn slavery, ya know. Those old time preachers used to say so.
Texas is heading for really pathetic when its coasts start getting slammed with more vicious storms. When the weather turns, they will really start looking for Jay-sus. And want to go saddling up those four horses for themselves.
All of this type of crap would stop if there was a required acceptable book list for any and all schools that receive federal dollars.
They’d probably reject the dollars like the free Medicaid.
That could be a very two-edged sword, unless and until the Federal Department of Education is disbanded, or unless you can guarantee it will never fall into the hands of Republicans.
See also David Barton and the Institute for Creation Research.
○ 14 Wacky “Facts” Kids Will Learn in Louisiana’s Voucher Schools
I really don’t need any sociopath religious ruling to wish the dallas cowboys a very dismal season.
But it helps!!
Why are you flipping out now over an article from more than 6 months aho?
“Can it get any more pathetic in the Lone Star State?”
No
Sigh
Correction.
Yes.
And it will.
I live in Oregon now. But I spent most of my life in Texas. I grew up in Austin and spent most of my adult life in Dallas.
There are at least two ‘Texas”. The big cities are as blue as one would want. The rest of the state is a caution. Texas has lately been getting some pretty bad press, much of it richly deserved. But, let me tell you, they aren’t all such a bad sort: mostly led astray by some of the most expert demagogues on the planet.
That said, I now live in Oregon, and though SW Oregon is pretty red, I think that I like it here better.
My cohort and I are fixin’ to change SW Oregon.