Radical Christians Want to Purify American Textbooks

Fundamentalist Christians in Texas want to revise the lesson plans. Their goal: to obliterate alleged leftist teachings. They think Ronald Reagan deserves more praise; they no longer want hip-hop, the culture of African-American youth, to be recognized as part of America’s cultural development.

According to fundamentalist Christians in Texas, Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and father of the Constitution, should not be taught in Texas schools as anything more than being involved in 18th and 19th century politics. They want Jefferson, who called for the separation of church and state, to be replaced in lesson plans covering first through 12th grades by reformer John Calvin, who taught that mankind should be strictly divided into those who are “chosen” and those who are “not chosen.”

That decision, along with numerous others, was reached by a Texas Board of Education committee after bitter debate. Secularism is no longer to be taught as a basis for the founding of the country; rather, students should be taught that the founding fathers meant the United States to be based on Christian teaching. As a result, they say, students should no longer be taught that the U.S. Constitution forbids the government from favoring one religion over another.

Conservative Republicans supported by fundamentalist Christians form a majority on the committee. The proposed lesson plan changes will be publicly discussed from now until a final decision is reached in May. Because Texas, with a population of 21 million, is the second largest state, its school curriculum has significant influence on national publishers concerning the content of textbooks that are sold nationwide. The decisions made in Texas come right at a time when President Obama is proposing unified curricula for all schools across the country.

Dentist Don McLeroy, spokesman for the conservative groups, claims it is necessary to correct the “distortions of the left” in depicting American history, and is proposing some 100 revisions to the 102-page curriculum. Among them, Republican President Ronald Reagan should be given more emphasis in classroom teaching, as should the National Rifle Association.

They also believe more emphasis should be placed on the constitutional guarantee that every American has a right to carry weapons and that the same African-American liberation movement that produced Dr. Martin Luther King and his non-violent philosophies also made the violent acts of the Black Panthers possible. McLeroy’s demand that the civil rights movement be seen as based on “unrealistic expectations” was one of only a handful of rejected concepts. The notion that hip-hop should no longer be recognized as a cultural development in America, however, was approved.

Mary Helen Berlanga, a Hispanic member of the school board committee, criticized the committee, saying, “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.” She stormed out of the meeting when her suggestion that Hispanic influence on national development receive greater emphasis was rejected by the committee.

The danger of rewriting history was recently shown when the committee deleted the third grade book “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” from lesson plans. Republicans justified the action by saying the author of the book, Bill Martin, had also authored the book “Ethical Marxism.” But the little bear cubs turned out to be innocent — it was pure coincidence that there were two different authors with the same name.