The blasphemous GOP push for religion in public schools

Landry explained that if public schools want to instill respect for the law into students, “you’ve got to start with the original law-giver, who was Moses.” Supporters of the law argue that the Ten Commandments are not solely religious but have “historical significance,” which makes them appropriate to display in public school classrooms when paired with a four paragraph context statement — the content, size or legibility of which has not been specified.

Not to be outdone, Oklahoma Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters announced a new mandate for public schools there, declaring: “Every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom, and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom.”

Pastor:  All these men believe they are doing the Lord’s work, but they really haven’t thought it through. I know they don’t want someone like me teaching students how to interpret scripture. Because I’d teach the kindergartners that all people are created in the image of God and must be treated with reverence and respect. I’d teach the fifth graders that God is as much female as male and that God hates the patriarchy and all systems of oppression. I’d teach the middle schoolers that Jesus and the prophets saw amassing wealth and the pursuit of power as the worst kinds of sin and idolatry. And I’d teach high schoolers about restorative justice and God’s preferential option for the poor. Because that’s how I read the gospel.

If the govenor of Florida can, by the power not vested in him, unilaterally declare that the church of Satan isn’t a religion, then he can also wake up one morning and decide that Islam isn’t a religion, or Hinduism, or Catholicism or any faith that allows women to preach or doesn’t handle snakes.