Crazy Creationist of the Month

Posted by Lionel Boyd Johnson.

This month's crazy creationist goes to the Texas State Board of Education, with emphasis to Don McLeroy.

Who is Don McLeroy?

He is a practicing dentist and super-conservative Christian creationist who has been on the Texas Board of Education for a little over ten years before recently being defeated by just a sliver of votes. Before leaving, he managed to oversee the textbook standards revisions done once every decade. Where in the past he has attacked evolution and called for teaching weaknesses of evolutionary theory alongside the theory itself (if he knows enough about it to name any weaknesses at all), he and fellow ultraconservatives on the board were narrowly overturned by more sane and rational members. The Board has turned their sights this month on history standards, with minor adjustments to sociology, government, and economics as well.

The myth has been propagated for a long time that America was founded as "a Christian Nation," and the Texas BOE would like to continue that myth. Although in a sense, the first pilgrims were fleeing religious persecution in their native countries, almost immediately upon arrival did they manage to commit similar or equal atrocities against people of different faiths from their own. When the time came to construct a government for the United States, it was decided, by enlightened, rational minds, that religion of any kind deserves no place in the formation of any government. For that reason, America was founded to be the first secular nation, neither condemning nor condoning any one faith over any other.

Evidently, however, the members of the Board don't want their children to know that, which is why they voted down students learning "the reasons the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others.” This is also why they completely removed Thomas Jefferson, who is credited with the term "separation of church and state," which, even though is not verbatim mentioned in the constitution, is clearly implied, as the first amendment cannot mean anything else, and have decided to teach John Calvin in his place. Predictably enough, they removed teaching the first amendment and all its implications, choosing to stress the second amendment, and all its implications.

In an attempt to teach balance, the BOE has pushed for the teaching of the Venona papers, which loosely try to vindicate McCarthyism. They seek that students learn the violent acts of the Black Panther Movement alongside the works of Martin Luther King Jr, but strangely they rejected any addition of any Black or Hispanic names that contributed to American History.

The phrase "capitalism" has been replaced with "free-enterprise system." “Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” says Terri Leo, one of the Board members. By changing the name, they attempt to shadow any criticism or flaw with capitalism, plus they probably like using the word "free," because it makes them sound like freedom-loving patriots.

They would like their children to think of America as a haven of tolerance, incapable of making mistakes. That's why they want to play down the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII, and what's more, because they consider tolerance to be a Christian virtue, they want tomorrow's leaders not to understand that the government cannot promote Christianity over anything else. In McLeroy's own words, “History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left.” You could make a case for that, but it can't be "canceled out" by imposing conservative bias into the curriculum, that's called "truth is in the middle." Biases should be corrected with factual accuracy, not by swinging the pendulum all the way around, so that the system is still broken, just in another way.

Why should you care that Texas educational standards are being decided by biased religious fundamentalists with no expertise is history, sociology, psychology, or economics? Well, because of Texas's large size, textbook publishers but a lot of weight on what Texas wants in their books, and many other states simply follow Texas's lead and buys whatever books they buy. In other words, what they teach in Texas could eventually make its way to your state, though California is large enough to fend off Texas standards for a while. Moreover, these standards will be difficult, if not impossible, to change until the next revision comes around in ten years, which means that your children could be at risk at learning incomplete or skewed facts about basic history.

Thankfully, Don McLeroy is on his way out, so there's not much more damage he can cause, but he managed to deal a heavy blow to educational standards before leaving.