Alessandra Maldonado at Salon writes—Kentucky’s evangelical Gov. Matt Bevin signs bill allowing public schools to teach from the Bible:
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin signed into law a bill that will allow courses on the Bible to be taught in public schools beginning on Friday. Overwhelmingly passed by Kentucky’s Republican-controlled state legislature, HB 128 gives Kentucky school boards the option to add elective courses on Bible literacy to their social studies curriculum. [...]
According to the bill, the courses must discuss all aspects of the Bible — such as characters, poetry, and narratives — because they are “prerequisites to understanding contemporary society and culture.” [...]
The ACLU of Kentucky, however, expressed concern that the courses could “become unconstitutional in its implementation.” ACLU Advocacy Director Kate Miller told WDRB-TV: “We want to make sure that teachers can teach and make sure that they don’t go in to preach.”
Miller is being diplomatic. Seriously. How long will it be before teachers become proseltizers during these so-called lessons in “Bible literacy.” A month, a week, an hour? After all, the bill signing began with a prayer. The governor says the law will easily pass constitutional scrutiny.
It’s true, as one lawmaker says, that teaching about the Bible can serve a secular purpose. And the Bible classes will be electives, not required. But we can expect it won’t be long before some Kentucky children will be sitting in classes where teachers teach the Bible, not about the Bible.
What do you suppose will happen to that well-read and mouthy Kentucky 10th grader who challenges the veracity of biblical tales such as The Flood, the Exodus, the Resurrection?
There’s a proper place for studying the Bible in public schools: a comparative religions class in which the sacred writings of numerous systems of belief are examined.
Here’s Corky Siemaszko at NBC News:
While the state teachers union, the Kentucky Education Association, has not yet weighed in on the new law, groups that want to keep church and state separate like the Kentucky Secular Society, have opposed it.
“This is an opportunity for teachers to preach religion in the classroom,” the group said. “If this course is really for literary purposes, it should include other mythologies and literatures that have impacted our culture as well.”
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QUOTATION
“The United States as we know it was founded on the principle of inalienable rights, this idea that some rights are so sacrosanct not even a government can take them away. Of course, this country’s founding fathers were only thinking of wealthy white men when they codified this principle, but still, it’s a nice idea, that there are some freedoms that cannot be taken away. What this debate shows us is that even in this day and age, the rights of women are not inalienable. Our rights can be and are, with alarming regularity, stripped away.”
~Roxane Gay, The Alienable Rights of Women, 2012
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At on this date in 2004—An Act on Paper:
It was a glorious day for the administration of Dubyanocchio nearly 14 months ago when the president stood before the cameras on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to announce to the world with his patented smirk: “Mission Accomplished.” It was one of those cleverly crafted propaganda moments that the shapers of the public mind hope can be transformed into indelible images as politically powerful as, say, JFK’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech four decades ago.
Bush's premature triumphalism was certainly a far cry from the paper-shuffling “transfer of power” in Baghdad. Today's ceremony might as well have taken place in Saddam Hussein’s spider hole.
As Kosopolitan thirdparty points out, Viceroy L. Paul Bremer took his leave from Iraq today with a little less fanfare than the PR doyens might have liked.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin and Joan McCarter are on hand to bring us up to date with the latest developments on the Republican Medicaid repeal bill, what happened to it and what’s next for it. If only we could get Donald Trump to listen in, maybe he’d understand it at last.
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