Archive for June, 2010

Newer Entries »

How Extreme Will the Texas GOP Get?

June 9, 2010

UPDATE: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is reporting that immigration is likely to be a key point of contention in the Texas GOP’s platform debate this weekend. Other platform proposals are expected from “birthers” who don’t believe President Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen and people who want Republicans to support the Constitution against threats by “Sharia law adherents living in the United States of America and the rest of the world.”

…

Will Texas Republicans this weekend succeed in loosening the grip that the religious right and other extremist factions have over their state party? We’ll find out when the Texas GOP holds its 2010 convention Friday and Saturday (June 11-12) at the Dallas Convention Center, but our guess is traditional conservatives and moderates will be disappointed once again.

The 2008 state Republican platform — as with other platforms since the religious right took control of the Texas GOP in the early 1990s — was a classic exercise in political extremism. Here’s just a taste of what the 2008 platform had to say:

  • Separation of church and state is a “myth.”
  • Public schools should emphasize instruction on Judeo-Christian principles.
  • Government should repeal laws, such as Motor Voter and the Help America Vote Act, that have made voter registration easier for citizens.
  • All minimum wage laws should be repealed.
  • Public schools should teach nothing about sex education except abstinence-only-until-heterosexual-marriage.
  • The United States should withdraw from the United Nations and other international organizations. (more…)

Posted in religious right, Republican Party of Texas | 23 Comments »

The Whole Truth about the Confederacy

June 7, 2010

One of the more interesting — if not enlightening — debates about social studies curriculum standards at the May State Board of Education meeting in Austin focused on the avowed importance of including a study of Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address alongside the first and second inaugural addresses and the Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lincoln. Eventually the board’s far-right faction succeeded in adding the Davis address.

We count on Texas classroom teachers to provide their students with a candid and complete insight into the basic beliefs of the leaders of the Confederacy. With slavery downgraded by the board from its status as the primary cause of the Civil War (with slavery now listed behind sectionalism and states’ rights elsewhere in the new standards), this insight is particularly important. Davis’ inaugural address, after all, doesn’t even mention the word “slavery.” Excerpts from several other documents, however, go a long way in telling the real story.

(more…)

Posted in civil war, social studies | 14 Comments »

Using Fear of Gay Marriage as a Weapon?

June 5, 2010

Nearly every effort to extend equal and civil rights protections to gay and lesbian Americans is met with a familiar criticism from the religious right: “They’ll want to get married next!” That’s what we heard when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws. We’ve heard it about legislation ending employment discrimination against gay men and lesbians. Now we’re told that ending the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy against openly gay servicemembers will open the door to gay marriage. Apparently, religious-right groups think throwing the spectre “gay marriage” into just about any debate is a winning strategy. Case in point:

(more…)

Posted in LGBT issues, Liberty Institute | 12 Comments »

Barton Plays Historian Again (Poorly)

June 4, 2010

OneNewNow (“the day’s stories from a biblical perspective”) once again features David Barton, the prominent right-wing political activist who pretends to be an accomplished historian, in a story about social studies curriculum standards in Texas public schools. You can read the whole thing for yourself, but a few passages stuck out for us.

First, Barton praises the new standards — adopted last month by the State Board of Education — for focusing on the concept of “American exceptionalism.”

“There is a reason that we’re the only nation in the world that does not average a revolution every 30 to 40 years; there’s a reason that we have four percent of the world’s population [and] 25 percent of the world’s wealth.”

Really, David? We think there are a lot of things that make America an exceptional nation, and we think students should learn about them. But is the lack of political revolutions unique to America?

(more…)

Posted in David Barton, social studies | 6 Comments »

How Far to the Right Is the Tea Party?

June 4, 2010

As we have suggested in numerous posts about the Tea Party movement, hardcore Tea Partiers in Texas appear increasingly linked to the religious right. A new survey from the University of Washington’s Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race & Sexuality also shows that hardcore Tea Partiers in Washington state — identified in the survey as “true believers” who strongly approve of the Tea Party — are significantly more conservative than voters generally. And it’s not that they are more conservative just on issues such as opposing taxes and “big government.” The survey shows that Tea Partiers are just fine with intrusive government so long as government is doing what they want.

(more…)

Posted in civil and equal rights, gay marriage, immigration, LGBT issues, tea party | 5 Comments »

Check Out TFN’s New Website!

June 3, 2010

If you haven’t had a chance yet, mosey on over to the Texas Freedom Network’s new website. We’ll be making tweaks over the next few weeks, but we hope you find the new site more visually appealing and easier to navigate. Please let us know what you think.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Voucher Lobby: Still Misleading Texans

June 3, 2010

Empower Texans (ET), a relatively new and aggressive pro-vouchers group, is continuing the far right’s campaign to undermine confidence in Texas public schools.

In May, ET president Michael Quinn Sullivan made statements focused on school spending and the ratio of teachers to non-teachers that are, at best, deliberately misleading. Example: Sullivan noted that there are almost as many non-teachers as teachers in Texas schools, suggesting that all of those non-teachers are “bureaucrats”:

“Do we really need one non-teacher for every teacher on the public school payroll? . . . Hey, we’ve got bureaucrats to play. What value do they bring to the classroom? Very little.”

(more…)

Posted in vouchers | 5 Comments »

Bringing Progressive People of Faith Together

June 2, 2010
Note from TFN: We’re happy to post this guest piece from Tim Palmer, director of communications and outreach for the Religious Institute. That Connecticut-based, multifaith organization is dedicated to advocating for sexual health, education and justice in faith communities and society. Tim is introducing us to a new project for progressive people of faith.

Like the rest of the country, this transplanted Texan (I have lived in New York since 1997) watched in dismay as the State Board of Education made a joke of the words “curriculum standards.” I’m grateful as always that the Texas Freedom Network has been a voice for reason and sanity. I was particularly interested in Dan’s post about the hate mail you’ve received, and how much of it assumes that if you’re progressive, you surely aren’t Christian, or a person of faith of any kind. That’s when it struck me how much TFN and the organization I work for — the Religious Institute — have in common.

(more…)

Posted in Religious Institute | 6 Comments »

Dishonesty about Sex Education

June 2, 2010

Community Impact News has asked Republican incumbent Ken Mercer, Democrat Rebecca Bell-Metereau and Libertarian Mark Loewe about issues important in their District 5 State Board of Education race. District 5 covers and expansive area, including parts of San Antonio, Austin and the Hill Country and even extending all the way up to Bell County. Check out the interviews here (for Mercer), here (for Bell-Metereau) and here (for Loewe). But we wanted to highlight an especially misleading response from Mercer regarding a question about sex education:

When I talk to parents in my district, they want their kids to understand the consequences of the choices. If they choose to abstain, if they choose to become sexually active, parents want kids to know the consequences. It’s called personal responsibility. What they do not want is a comprehensive, how-to class.

The complaint I’ve heard from parents is that there is an agenda to promote a how-to class, and it’s not about how to have sex; it’s about what are the consequences of your decisions. Parents and groups I talked to consider ‘comprehensive’ a code word to teach about sex in other lifestyles. They want kids to understand the consequences of their decisions: That’s what sex ed and health books are all about.

‘Comprehensive’ has been a code word for how to have sex with the opposite or same sex people, that its more of an indoctrination to other lifestyles. That’s not what parents want.

Sigh. So much misinformation and distortion in one short answer.

(more…)

Posted in Ken Mercer, sex education | 11 Comments »

Hate Mail-o-Rama

June 1, 2010

Various newspapers, including the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle, have now published Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller’s op-ed about the State Board of Education — and the hate mail is pouring in! We decided to share. (We haven’t corrected typos and such.)

Some is concise, if caustic, as in this e-mail under the subject line: “Socoalist/Marxist/Progressive.”

Dear Killer of Society,

Eat s**t you worthless misguided  B**ch.

This is the Legacy of your blind idealism

Thank you.

The “thank you” was a nice touch, don’t you think? So polite.

(more…)

Posted in hate mail | 16 Comments »

Newer Entries »