What Do You Think of Louisiana's Ten Commandments Law?
Today's Reader Question...that's already outdated by other Christo-fascist state directives (Scroll to the end to listen)
Since I recorded this newsletter, Oklahoma’s state superintendent of education has directed every public school from grades 5 - 12 to have a Bible in the classroom and teach from that Bible. From CNN: At a State Board of Education meeting, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters said the Bible is “one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution and the birth of our country. It’s crystal clear to us that in the Oklahoma academic standards under Title 70 on multiple occasions, the Bible is a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system,” Walters said. Every classroom in the state from grades 5 through 12 must have a Bible and all teachers must teach from the Bible in the classroom, Walters said.”
I haven’t written or said much about Louisiana’s law requiring that the KJV Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms. Laws like this one are triggering for me. They take me back to my time in Christian Nationalism in a way the rest of this work somehow doesn’t.
I’m not a credentialed journalist. As such, I’m willing to type and say things others might not type and say.
Today, I want to type and state one thing clearly: Louisiana’s Ten Commandments Law isn’t a joke. Through what they say and do, they reveal their Christo-fascist, theocratic endgame for all of us.
If my childhood pastor said this once, he said it a thousand times: America jumped on the path of God’s judgment when it removed God from public schools.
His version of God is the Christian Nationalist version: Angry, vengeful Old Testament God. Smiter of cities and nations. Destroyer of the whole world by flood. Advocate of death by stoning for taking his name in vain.
Christian Nationalists are making it clear: Their god is the only god who can be recognized in public school classrooms. That’s the god they’re determined to indoctrinate kindergarteners to revere and respect.
And they won’t stop with the King James Version of the Ten Commandments.
Here’s a laundry list of things my childhood Christian Nationalist pastor also cited as necessary elements in public schools to “turn America back to God.” This list mirrors things Christian Nationalist Republicans are already attempting today.
Organized, compulsory prayer. In 2022, the Supreme Court paved the way for compulsory prayer in public schools by finding in favor of a high school football coach who prayed at the 50-yard line after games.
The teaching of Creation as science. Christian Nationalists are already working on this one, too. On March 22, 2024, West Virginia passed a law allowing for the teaching of “alternatives” to evolution in public schools. Those “alternatives” are intelligent design and the Genesis story of Creation.
The teaching of Christian Nationalist history and civics. We’ve already seen multiple red states ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory. Florida has gone so far as to pay teachers bonuses to attend civics training created by…wait for it…Hillsdale College and the Christian George Fox University, among others. (Hemant Mehta @thefriendlyatheist wrote an excellent deep dive into the latter HERE.)
Mandatory Bible classes. They’ve already managed to get optional Bible classes in eleven states as of 2023. In May, Texas unveiled its new Bible-soaked elementary school curriculum. While the former is optional, the Texas curriculum is standardized and therefore mandatory. Rather than calling it a Bible class, Texas buries Christian Nationalist religious indoctrination in other liberal arts instruction.
Christian counselors. More than a dozen states are considering legislation to put “spiritual” (read Christian Nationalist) chaplains in public schools. Texas and Florida laws allow chaplains to serve in place of trained school counselors. Christian Nationalists believe everything can be solved with Bible study and prayer. Red states are actively replacing secular therapy modalities with religious indoctrination in public schools. I wrote about how Christian Nationalists view secular therapy HERE.
The Christo-fascist Republican endgame is to make ALL American public schools Christian Nationalist public schools. Fully funded by taxpayer dollars. Assisted by religious non-profits that will receive public funds while not paying income tax or being subject to transparent reporting. In many red states, they are well on their way to making Christian Nationalist religious indoctrination as early as public school kindergarten a reality.
The hue and cry over the Ten Commandments is warranted, but it masks the many other, much more insidious things Christian Nationalists are doing to force religious indoctrination into public schools.
It’s part of their strategy. Assault our norms on every front. Wear us down trying to fight the many fires they start. Distract us with something like the Ten Commandments while rolling out textbooks with actual Bible verses and stories in them and requiring every public elementary school student in one of our biggest states to use them.
The solution? Vote blue at every level of government this November. Then demand that our Democrat representatives make churches and religious non-profits pay taxes. Make them account for public funds they receive. Investigate them and if necessary charge them with crimes when they have misused public funds.
They may cry PERSECUTION! But their cries will quickly be drowned out as we uncover what will likely be one of the biggest frauds on taxpayers in American history: Giving public funds to so-called Christian churches and charities who did very un-Christian things with said money.
An Oklahoma superintendent, Ryan Walters, has declared that "Every teacher, every classroom in the state, will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom." Here is Stonekettle's response on FB this morning:
Good Morning, Children. Please open your Bibles to Ezekiel 23:19-21.
"Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.”
Your assignment is to ask your parents to help you write a 500 word essay on what you think that means. Illustrations optional.
Well, most of the kids in Louisiana won't be able to read them anyway. They are 48 or 49th in the country in illiteracy. Louisiana is not a place that lifts families or anyone up for that matter who isn't a wealthy, white lying Bible thumper. Functional illiteracy is the name of the game here. Because, the people keep voting for the same fucking useless feckless dumb incompetent asswipes. It's working for the GQP. Red hats just replaced white pointy hoods.