Texas Board of Education candidate Eric Mahroum
Man, they sure do know how to pick their
lunatics in Texas:
A GOP candidate for the Texas State Board of Education who fathered a child at age 16 said he opposes teaching students about contraception in schools, KERA News reported on Monday.
According to
the report, Eric Mahroum not only became a father at 16, but also home-schools one of his children, supports biblical displays in the classroom, and wants to arm teachers with guns.
And no, this isn't some random fringe nut with no shot of actually winning: Mahroum has the backing of Texas tea partiers and forced a run-off election when he held incumbent Board of Education member and former social studies teacher Pat Hardy below 50 percent in the Republican primary. Mahroum received 43.5 percent of the vote forcing the run-off election which is being held on Tuesday, May 27.
If Mahroum does pull off a victory today, you can probably give local media some of the blame. Check out this headline on KERA's report about the contraception issue:
In State Board Of Ed Race, Hardy And Mahroum Disagree On How To Teach Contraception
Uh, they don't disagree on "how to teach" so much as they disagree on "whether to teach," a fact you don't learn until the final two paragraphs of the story. Then again, given that Mahroum is running in the GOP primary, maybe the less people know, the better off Hardy will be.