Wingers Getting It Wrong For the Kids

Our founding fathers would be dismayed at many things that the wingers have done to their concept of independence, but teaching that God made them do it would not pass muster. These intellectuals who were dismissive of the fundamentalist teachings of colonial days were not about to carry water for any church. Now present day fundies - who want their church to tell you what your body ought to be required to do - are trying to teach your children their own version of history.

That the enemies of our country envy our freedoms is actually true among these screwy revisionists.

The Christian right is making a fresh push to force religion onto the school curriculum in Texas with the state's education board about to consider recommendations that children be taught that there would be no United States if it had not been for God.

Members of a panel of experts appointed by the board to revise the state's history curriculum, who include a Christian fundamentalist preacher who says he is fighting a war for America's moral soul, want lessons to emphasise the part played by Christianity in the founding of the US and that religion is a civic virtue.

Opponents have decried the move as an attempt to insert religious teachings in to the classroom by stealth, similar to the Christian right's partially successful attempt to limit the teaching of evolution in biology lessons in Texas.

One of the panel, David Barton, founder of a Christian heritage group called WallBuilders, argues that the curriculum should reflect the fact that the US Constitution was written with God in mind including that "there is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature", that "there is a creator" and "government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual".

Barton says children should be taught that Christianity is the key to "American exceptionalism" because the structure of its democratic system is a recognition that human beings are fallible, and that religion is at the heart of being a virtuous citizen.

Another of the experts is Reverend Peter Marshall, who heads his own Christian ministry and preaches that Hurricane Katrina and defeat in the Vietnam war were God's punishment for sexual promiscuity and tolerance of homosexuals. Marshall recommended that children be taught about the "motivational role" of the Bible and Christianity in establishing the original colonies that later became the US.
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Social studies teachers will meet shortly to consider the panel's views and make their own recommendations to the board of education which has the final say. The board is dominated by conservatives who appointed Barton and Marshall to the panel.

These revisionists ought to be given no say at all in school curriculum. It's doubtful that most churches would allow such drivel to be taught in their bible schools and most parents I know would snatch their children out of any school where such nonsense was taught.

The right wing has been working its way into posts of responsibility to spread their poison, and our negligence of our own citizenship has allowed it to happen by not being involved in our own government locally. I'm guilty, too, since I found out that wingnuts had sought and gotten positions in our city government several years back but thought they'd learn something which might be to everyone's good.

Nothing positive happens when the ignorant get into positions of authority. In Dallas, the Health Department has been allowed once again to distribute condoms - after prohibiting the practice resulted in increased occurrences of HIV, and unwanted pregnancies.

Our founding fathers were men of amazing intellect, and despoiling the great country we've been fortunate to inherit is not to be allowed. Separation of church and state may not be written into the constitution, but our freedoms are spelled out quite definitively, even when it did take many years to extend them to most of our citizens.

We need to protect this country from those who want to deprive us of our freedom. Our children are at risk once again, in Texas.