{"id":422925,"date":"2010-03-12T12:55:47","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T17:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.rj.org,2010:\/rac\/\/2.2559"},"modified":"2010-03-12T12:59:57","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T17:59:57","slug":"something-is-rotten-in-the-state-of-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/422925","title":{"rendered":"Something is Rotten in the State of Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arielle Gingold is Public Policy Manager at Interfaith Alliance and a former Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center. The post originally appeared on State of Belief Blog<\/a> and is republished with permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

You just can’t make this stuff up. Today, the Texas State Board of
\nEducation voted on a variety of amendments to the state social studies
\nand U.S. government curricula. Get ready to be appalled at the
\noutcomes. As reported<\/a> by the Texas Freedom Network<\/a>, the Board voted to<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. remove Thomas Jefferson from world history curriculum on the impact of Enlightenment thinkers\n<\/li>\n
  2. include discussion of the right to bear arms in curriculum on First Amendment rights and free expression\n<\/li>\n
  3. strike down an amendment that
    \nwould have required students to “examine the reasons the Founding
    \nFathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government
    \nfrom promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What is most unbelievable and emblematic of the Board’s far-right
    \nmajority’s (lack of) understanding of the separation between religion
    \nand government in America is the third item in this litany of woes. 
    \nAccording to Cynthia Dunbar (one of the more prominent conservatives on
    \nthe Board), the separation of religion and government wasn’t actually
    \nthe Founders’ intent– they wanted to promote religion.  Therefore,     said<\/a> Dunbar, the proposed amendment was “not historically accurate.”<\/p>\n

    While (luckily), Thomas Jefferson isn’t out of Texas education
    \ncurricula as a whole, there is no doubt that he is one of the
    \npreeminent American scholars of the Enlightenment era and it is a shame
    \nstudents will not learn that.  Also, last time I checked, the right to
    \nbear arms had its own<\/em> section of the Bill of Rights, you know, the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n

    What’s more unfortunate is that such a narrow minded group of individuals have such power<\/a>
    \nover what children learn across the country, that these are “guidelines
    \nthat will affect students around the country, from kindergarten to 12th
    \ngrade, for the next 10 years.”  Why?     Because<\/a>
    \nthe state of Texas buys or distributes “a staggering 48 million
    \ntextbooks annually,” which leads “educational publishers to tailor
    \ntheir products to fit the standards dictated by the Lone Star State.”<\/p>\n

    To quote<\/a>
    \nour friends at the Texas Freedom Network: “Let the word go out here:
    \nThe Texas State Board of Education today refused to require that
    \nstudents learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from
    \npromoting one religion over all others. They voted to lie to students
    \nby omission.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Arielle Gingold is Public Policy Manager at Interfaith Alliance and a former Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center. The post originally appeared on State of Belief Blog and is republished with permission. You just can’t make this stuff up. Today, the Texas State Board of Education voted on a variety of amendments to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-422925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}