We told you Monday that a religious-right group’s voter guide reveals that several Republican candidates in Texas State Board of Education elections this year think government shouldn’t be responsible for making sure all children get an education. The same candidates also support shifting tax dollars from public to private schools. So it might not be surprising to hear that their hostility to public education is matched by their disdain for science and separation of church and state.

According to answers in the voter guide, District 7 incumbent David Bradley, R-Beaumont Buna, and Fort Worth challengers Eric Mahroum and Lady Theresa Thombs in the District 11 Republican primary all support teaching “intelligent design”/creationism in public schools. They also want biology textbooks to teach creationist arguments about so-called “weaknesses” of evolution. District 11 incumbent Pat Hardy, R-Fort Worth, indicated that she opposes teaching both “intelligent design” and those discredited “weaknesses” arguments.

All of those candidates, including Hardy, say the Ten Commandments should be displayed in public school buildings, that marriage is a union of one man and one woman and that “no government has the authority to alter this definition.”) They also “strongly agree” that “the more people live by Judeo-Christian values, the less government is needed.”

And they appear to buy into the anti-Muslim hysteria promoted by right-wing pressure groups and activists. All said they “strongly disagree” with the statement that “efforts to bring Islamic law (shariah) to America do not pose a threat to our country and its Constitution.”

Of course, the imposition of Islamic law — as well as religious law of any particular faith — would threaten the Constitution if we allowed it to happen. But the irony here is that all of those Republicans say they agree that “no government has the authority to alter” the definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman.  Well, why not? Because they want their own religious beliefs enshrined forever in law — and in our public schools.