The Freedom From Religion Foundation will contact every Texas public school district to urge rejection of the bible-infused curriculum that the Texas Educational Agency has narrowly approved.
The earliest this curriculum could go into effect is next August. While religion is not part of the entire curriculum, the so-called “Bluebonnet Learning” unnecessarily introduces religion into lesson plans and is biased toward Christianity. Reprehensibly, the program targets the youngest and most impressionable students, since it is geared to kindergarten through fifth grade. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who describes himself as a “Christian first, conservative second,” has praised the curriculum.
FFRF has a strongly different assessment.
“The kinds of references the suggested curriculum use — such as using the Golden Rule as a pretext to introduce kindergarteners to Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount — are suitable for Sunday school classes, but do not belong in our public schools,” says Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president. “We will urge school districts to avoid this politicized and divisive curriculum.”
The Golden Rule, a phrase that does not appear in the bible, far predates the bible. In 10 A.D., Hillel advanced a better rule: “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow men.”
Hinduism, considered the world’s oldest religion, has a rule similar to Hillel’s, as does Confucianism.
Introducing primary school students to the story of Queen Esther reeks of a Christian nationalist agenda, adds Gaylor, who calls the story of Esther “sexist” and notes that Esther is celebrated for being an obedient warmonger. A public school curriculum should not treat a biblical character as a historical figure who belongs in the company of Rosa Parks.
The curriculum’s first-grade vocabulary lesson on the word “compromise” is illustrated by reporting that Samuel Adams urged delegates at the Continental Congress to pray. It omits that the Continental Congress and its Articles of Confederation were failures and that there was no prayer during the four-month-long Constitutional Convention that produced the U.S. Constitution. More importantly, the Founders adopted a godless Constitution barring any religious test for public office.
The overarching goal of the Texas Educational Agency appears to suggest that such secular ideals of freedom and equality are based in Christianity. Yet there is no democracy in the bible. Since the Agency is looking to history for inspiration, it ought to read and incorporate the remarks of President Grant in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1875, where he wisely counseled:
Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money appropriated to their support, no matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school. Resolve that either the state or nation, or both combined, shall support institutions of learning sufficient to afford to every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good, common school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan or atheistical tenets. Leave the matter of religion to the family circle, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contribution. Keep the Church and State forever separate.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members and several chapters across the country, including more than 1,700 members in Texas and a chapter in Austin. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
