One of the many controversial changes the Texas State Board of Education made to proposed social studies curriculum standards this year was requiring that students learn about Phyllis Schlafly’s role in a “conservative resurgence” in the 1980s and 1990s. Schlafly, the head of the far-right group Eagle Forum, rose to political prominence by attacking the women’s rights movement and opposing the Equal Rights Amendment. But will Texas students learn the truth about Schlafly’s extremism and hatefulness or, instead, a whitewashed version of her work and positions?
“Do you know what the second-biggest demographic group that voted for Obama — obviously the blacks were the biggest demographic group. But do you all know what was the second-biggest? Unmarried women, 70% of unmarried women, voted for Obama, and this is because when you kick your husband out, you’ve got to have big brother government to be your provider.”
In case you missed it, over the weekend the Dallas Morning News ran a profile on Liberty Institute, the Dallas-based religious-right outfit that has grown its national profile in recent years by suing schools for alleged First Amendment violations and trying (unsuccessfully) to keep Sarah Palin’s ethics problems from seeing the light of day. The group has long been known in Texas as a promoter of abstinence-only sex education, defender of discriminatory policies against gay and lesbian citizens and a reliable shill for culture warriors on the Texas State Board of Education. (Liberty lobbyists have strongly supported the state board’s controversial and heavily politicized rewrites of science and social studies curriculum standards.)
The Morning News did a good job exposing the bad reputation the group has among many school districts, as an attorney for Greenville ISD pointed out:
“They exist for two reasons: To push a conservative agenda and to gain attorney fees, to make money. Do I think that there is a hidden agenda? Yes.”
But notably absent from the story was the fact that Liberty Institute is actually the Texas affiliate of James Dobson’s right-wing empire Focus on the Family. Just an oversight on the part of the reporter? Probably not. This seems, rather, to be a calculated move by Liberty Institute to distance itself from Dobson’s group — an affiliation it used to embrace. Check out the front page of the Liberty Institute website from back in 2000 (when the group called itself “Free Market Foundation”):
There’s Dobson’s endorsement — with photo! — right on the front page.
Religious-right leaders often use faith as a weapon to divide people for political gain. An essay from Dave Welch, head of the far-right groups U.S. Pastor Council and Houston Area Pastor Council, offers another stark example.
In his July 17 essay for World Net Daily, a website that wallows in the dirty waters of the fringe right, Welch attacks both the faith and patriotism of pastors who don’t agree with him politically. His major targets are pastors who refuse to drag their houses of worship into political warfare. Writes Welch:
“(I)f a pastor is clearly shown that he can legally do anything in relation to influencing public policy, informing and registering voters, educating on candidates’ positions, etc. – with the only exception being directly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate as an organization (pastors may clearly do so individually) – and the pastor is doing none of the above … there must be another reason.
There is. His biblical worldview is incomplete, his theology is fragmented, he has been ‘seminarianized’ into the seeker-friendly, market-driven, church-growth mindset and/or he simply is not a leader.”
David Barton, the Texas-based WallBuilders pooh-bah who thinks government should promote his personal religious beliefs, has published an essay praising the “tea party” movement. No doubt, tea partiers include people from various walks of life who have what they consider perfectly reasonable concerns about government. Unfortunately, the tea party movement has also drawn some of its loudest voices from the extreme political fringes. But Barton pretends the tea party is just a big group of patriotic folks:
“The Tea Parties represent much of what is right in America – citizens reacquainting themselves with the Constitution and holding their elected officials accountable to its standards.”
Well, maybe. But Barton should acknowledge — and work to counter — the ideological extremism that continues to infect the tea party movement. Or does he think these examples of tea party extremism also “represent what is right in America”?
Of course, it’s not all that new. We’ve been watching this fester over the last decade. But the venom of the growing anti-Muslim hate campaign — and the willingness to disregard basic religious and civil liberties for American Muslims — should be a shocking development in a nation that has championed religious freedom for more than two centuries. Consider, for example, recent comments by Tennessee’s lieutenant governor, Ron Ramsey:
At a recent event in Hamilton County, Ramsey was asked by a man in the audience about the “threat that’s invading our country from the Muslims.” Ramsey proclaimed his support for the Constitution and the whole “Congress shall make no law” thing when it comes to religion. But he also said that Islam, arguably, is less a faith than it is a “cult.”
“Now, you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult whatever you want to call it,” Ramsey said. “Now certainly we do protect our religions, but at the same time this is something we are going to have to face.”
“After all, America and Americans are currently the target of attacks by members of the same Islamic faith that Ellison professes; and while Ellison may not hold the same specific beliefs as America’s enemies, he nevertheless holds the same religion. . . . Ellison may not have the same beliefs as the Muslims who openly decry and even attack America; nevertheless, their behavior reflects on him. It is therefore understandable that citizens outside his district are highly concerned.”
It looks like Texas schools are growing tired of waiting around for state law-makers to reverse the state’s addiction to failed abstinence-only programs. They are taking matters into their own hands.
Earlier this week San Marcos CISD became the latest in a rapidly expanding list of Texas districts — including schools in the Dallas-area , Austin-area, and San Antonio-area, to name but a few — to adopt a common-sense approach to sex education in their schools. On Monday the San Marcos school board voted to abandon abstinence-only sex education in favor of an abstinence-plus approach (which recommends abstinence first, but also provides basic information about contraception).
On one level this is unsurprising, since a May poll sponsored by TFNEF shows that 80 percent of likely voters in Texas agree that high school classes on sex education should teach “about contraception, such as condoms and other birth control, along with abstinence.” Contrary to conventional wisdom, teaching accurate and comprehensive sex education is NOT controversial in Texas.
But getting nervous school boards to overcome their reluctance and actually take action can be a daunting task. That’s why TFN launched an initiative last fall to support activists in local communities like San Marcos who wish to change their schools’ sex education policy. Almost a year into this program, we are starting to see some real results.
In school districts around the state, a familiar script is playing out again and again: (more…)
July campaign finance reports show that Democratic challengers in two Central Texas State Board of Education races currently have sizable funding advantages over their Republican opponents — at least on paper. But it’s still very early in the general election campaign, and one of those Republican candidates dipped deep into her own bank account to win the GOP nomination for her district seat this past spring. Only four state board elections in November have both Republican and Democratic nominees. Four of five candidates backed by far-right pressure groups lost their Republican nomination battles in the spring.
The following information is for the February 21-June 30, 2010, reporting period. The Democratic and Republican primaries were in March. One Republican nomination was decided in an April runoff. You can find each candidate’s campaign finance report here.
Critics of so-called “judicial activism” — examples of which are often court decisions they simply don’t like — loudly argue for a strict interpretation of the Constitution when judges interpret laws. So we find it hypocritical, to say the least, when those same critics later decide that the Constitution isn’t a sufficient basis for interpreting laws after all. Pastor Rick Scarborough, head of the Texas-based, far-right group Vision America, provided a good example of this kind of hypocrisy in an e-mail to supporters last week blasting U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.
Texans have plenty of it. Common sense, that is. Not, unfortunately, sex education.
The results of the TFN Education Fund’s statewide survey we released yesterday showed that 80 percent of likely voters in Texas agree that high school classes on sex education should teach “about contraception, such as condoms and other birth control, along with abstinence.” Yet last year’s comprehensive TFNEF report revealed that more than 9 in 10 public school districts in Texas teach abstinence-only or nothing at all about sex education. And that’s in a state with one of the nation’s highest teen birth rates (and the state with the highest rate of multiple births to teens).
Texans clearly understand that keeping young people ignorant is a foolish and dangerous approach to sex education. And the results of our statewide survey shows that support for comprehensive, medically accurate and evidence-based sex education is strong regardless of political beliefs, religious affiliation, education and race. Some details:
77 percent of Protestants, 82 percent of Roman Catholics and 70 percent of people who identified themselves as “born again” Christians agree that high school classes on sex education should teach “about contraception, such as condoms and other birth control, along with abstinence.”
97 percent of self-identified liberals, 93 percent of moderates and 63 percent of conservatives agree.
Among racial groups, the lowest level of support is among white Texans, and that number is still 78 percent.
Differences by educational level were almost nonexistent, with overwhelming support (either 79 percent of 80 percent) from respondents who had only a high school education (or less) or had gone to college and/or graduate school.
So we know Texans want young people to learn information about sexuality and health that will help them make important life decisions. It’s time to insist that lawmakers change the state’s ignorance-first policies on sex education. You can help by contacting your local legislators and asking them to support legislation next year that requires public schools to teach medically accurate, evidence-based information — including age-appropriate information about condoms and other forms of contraception and disease prevention — in sex education classes. You can also sign the Education Works! petition for comprehensive sex education here.
Today the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund released results from a statewide survey of what Texans think about the intersection of politics and religion with public schools. We released results from two questions back in May. One showed overwhelming support for putting teachers and scholars, instead of politicians on the State Board of Education, in charge of writing curriculum and textbook requirements. Another revealed that nearly 7 in 10 Texans agree that separation of church and state is a key principle of the Constitution.
Today we released the full results of the public survey. You can read highlights of the report in the press release below and read the full report here. But this is the key point: Texans are fed up with politicians dragging our children public schools into unnecessary and divisive culture war battles that promote personal and political agendas of state board members. They want the state board and our public schools to just educate Texas students and prepare them to succeed in college and their future careers. You can help reform the state board and protect the education of Texas schoolchildren by joining our Just Educate campaign today.
A new statewide survey shows Texans overwhelmingly support reforming the way the state sets requirements for curriculum and textbooks in public schools and reject key “culture war” positions the right has taken regarding public education.
This could be fun — in a “did they really say that?!?” kind of way. David Barton has invited Louie Gohmert, a Republican congressman from East Texas who can barely open his mouth without saying something outrageous, to be on his daily Internet radio program tomorrow (Tuesday).
In the race for whose arguments are the most extreme, however, Congressman Gohmert gives Barton a run for his money. Last month he warned that pregnant foreign terrorists are breeding baby terrorists in America. His support for democracy is so tenuous that earlier this year, upset that the Senate passed health care reform, he advocated for repealing the 17th Amendment, which requires the direct election of senators. Last fall Congressman Gohmert suggested that proposed legislation dealing with hate crimes would protect people engaged in sex with animals, corpses and children. His grasp of factual history is also as bad as Barton’s, arguing in June of this year that “the fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul.”
The show should be interesting, to say the least. Here’s Congressman Gohmert on terrorist babies:
Well, we can no longer accuse wannabe historian David Barton of never holding an actual teaching position at a university. He can now add “professor at Glenn Beck University” to his vita.
A fake university and a fake historian — a match made in heaven.
Barton’s latest collaboration with his new BFF Glenn Beck of Fox News is typical Barton propaganda. Barton is serving as the instructor of an online class called Faith 101, which launched this week on Beck’s “Inside Extreme” website. This and two other courses, Hope 101 and Charity 101, are part of what Beck calls “Beck University” — a title Beck admits he chose to annoy people who don’t agree with the Beckian brand of frequently false, deliberately divisive and always outrageous assertions about issues and people in the news. Subscribers pay $9.95 a month, and more classes are promised when the current weekly series ends on September 1.
Barton’s first lecture was full of the ideological hyperbole and specious factual claims that TFN Insider readers have become accustom to hearing from Barton, including this gem:
That means the Declaration of Independence is nothing more than a listing of all the sermons that folks had been hearing in church in the two decades leading up to the American Revolution.
We’re surprised that didn’t make its way into Texas’ new social studies curriculum standards, since Barton was appointed to an “expert” panel that advised the Texas SBOE on their recent controversial revision of the standards.
Predictably, those being introduced for the first time to Barton’s brand of sacred history don’t know whether to laugh or scream. Check out this segment from MSNBC’s Countdown last night, which features longtime Barton fact-checker Chris Rodda, author of Liars for Jesus.
TFN respects the right of all people to express their religious views, of course, but political partisans like Barton and Beck aren’t entitled to their own facts. And if there is one good thing about Barton’s new-found partnership with Beck, it is that his fringe opinions will be subjected to a much larger audience of fact-checkers.
Thought the late night comedians had moved on from ridiculing the Texas State Board of Education? Think again. Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report once again took aim at his favorite punching bag last night in a segment called “I’s on Edjukashun.” Check it out. (Colbert’s riff on the SBOE starts just after the 2:00 mark.)
This isn’t Stephen’s first run-in with the Texas SBOE. In March he interviewed historian Eric Foner, who bemoaned the board’s inaccurate rewrite of American history:
The problem is they [the SBOE] think America began perfect and has been getting better ever since.
Folks, if you’ve had enough of this embarrassment, join TFN’s Just Educate campaign to reform the state board. Our system for writing curriculum might make good political satire, but there’s nothing funny about handicapping our students.
We hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful Independence Day and recalling the freedoms on which our nation was founded and is still governed. So please take a few minutes to read the words that heralded the birth of our nation.
We also thought it would be appropriate to note the words of two of our greatest American thinkers and heroes, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Jefferson, of course, authored our nation’s Declaration of Independence. Madison is often considered the father of the Constitution. We recall the words of both (below) at a time when members of the Texas State Board of Education threaten one of our most cherished and important freedoms by insisting that public schools promote one particular religious perspective over all others. Indeed, some board members, like Cynthia Dunbar, and other influential political activists, like David Barton, even insist that our government, laws and elected officials essentially be judged by religious tests. Jefferson and Madison strongly argued otherwise.
