When the Family Research Council held its annual “Pray, Vote, Stand” summit last week, Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton was given a prime speaking slot, along with dozens of right-wing pastors, activists, commentators, and members of Congress.
While introducing Barton, FRC’s president Tony Perkins declared that what critics deride as Christian nationalism is simply true American history, and he credited Barton for having “done more than anyone else to help Americans, and Christians in particular, to know their history”—a history that Perkins claimed has intentionally been “hidden” by mainstream historians.
Perkins is correct in noting that nobody has been as influential as Barton in convincing millions of Americans that the United States was founded to be an explicitly Christian nation. And that is a problem, given that Barton’s misuse and misrepresentation of both American history and theBiblehave beenwell-documented.
Barton’s willingness to misrepresent history and scripture to promote his right-wing political agenda was on display when he spoke at Calvary Church in Moline, Illinois, last Wednesday as part of the Faith Wins voter mobilization effort.
One of Barton’s favorite methods of convincing his audience that America was founded as a Christian nation is to assert that Americans of the founding era were so deeply knowledgeable about the Bible that they referenced it continuously in their writings and speeches. The problem today, Barton insists, is that modern Christians are ignorant of both history and scripture and are thus incapable of recognizing the fact that our founding documents are chock-full of Bible quotes.
The irony of this assertion is that it relies on the very ignorance Barton decries in order to be effective, as anyone willing to look into the claims Barton makes will inevitably find that he is lying.
While speaking at Calvary Church, Barton trotted out a new example of this technique, when he claimed that first- and second-grade students attending public schools in New Jersey in the early 1800s were required to memorize large portions of the Bible as part of their curriculum.
It’s interesting to go back in those early records and see what was being taught in the schools. For example, let me take you to some early schools. I want to take in New Jersey. And in this case, I’m just going to choose 1816 [in] New Jersey. They’re going to show you what happens with first- and second-graders in New Jersey. Here’s what they say. It says, ‘All the scholars of the first and second classes commit to memory portions of the New Testament or Psalms, a lesson of the Catechism, several hymns, and the text of the preceding Sabbath.’ Everybody in public school in New Jersey, if you’re in first and second grade, this is what you’re getting memorize. And by the way, what are the texts of the preceding Sabbath? That means whatever Pastor Tim talked about on Sunday, we’re going to memorize those Bible verses; so whatever verses he referenced, we’re going to memorize. A public school is doing this? Yes, absolutely. This is what public schools did.
As we all know, some kids are sharper than other kids, and they talked about one of the kids that was really sharp. They said, ‘One of the scholars has committed to memory the Book of John, and the first 30 Psalms, together with 119th Psalm.’ A [student] in first and second grade memorized the Gospel of John, 30 Psalms, and Psalm 119. He was really sharp. The rest of the kids weren’t quite so sharp. Here’s what it said about the rest of them, ‘The majority have committed to memory the Gospel of John.’ The average kid has memorized the Gospel of John. Everybody does that in first and second grade, but we got one kid that added 30 chapters out of Psalms and Psalm 119. Really? Common for first and second grade is everybody memorizes the Gospel of John? Maybe one in 1,000 Christians today has memorized the Gospel of John, and that was first and second grade stuff back then.
Thanks to the quotations Barton cited, we were able to track down the document he used in making this claim. It was a report from the board of directors of the Free School Association of Elizabeth-Town published in a periodical called The Christian Herald and, predictably, Barton was blatantly misrepresenting it.
The first thing one notices upon reading the report is that the reference to “the scholars of the first and second classes” does not refer to what today would be called first and second graders. The report explicitly states students are “divided into seven classes” based upon their reading and writing abilities and that “most of the children in the fifth class were unable to read when they entered school.”
It is unlikely that first- and second-graders were memorizing entire books of the Bible, as Barton claimed, while fifth-graders were unable to read.
But more importantly, the document further reveals that this was not a public school at all, as Barton claimed, but rather a Sunday school.
As it notes, the students were “taught on the Lord’s day, immediately after the conclusion of public worship in the afternoon.”
In fact, the document itself confirms that these students were enrolled in Sunday school when it notes the existence of “two other Sunday schools” that were not under the board’s control.
As author James J. Gigantino II explained in his book, “The Ragged Road to Abolition: Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1775-1865,” the Free School Association of Elizabeth-Town grew out of the so-called “Sabbath school” movement, in which “schools sponsored by churches and private donors took over black education and continued white paternalistic control over it. These schools were led by white teachers and administrators, focused primarily on reading, writing, and basic mathematics, and taught biblical reading knowledge and prayer to instill religious and moral lessons in their students.”
From “Church of the Founding Fathers of New Jersey: A History,” a book chronicling the history of the First Presbyterian Church Elizabeth, it is clear that these were indeed Sunday schools set up by Rev. John McDowell, the author of the document that Barton cited.
One of the great and enduring achievements of the church during John McDowell’s ministry was the founding of the Sunday School. The first Sunday Schools in America were founded about 1805 in Boston and Philadelphia. The movement spread rapidly to other cities of the country, but not always with success. In many places, the schools were virtually forced upon the church members and the communities, and after a brief trial period, they were abandoned.
Reverend McDowell decided that the idea of founding a Sunday School was good, and used a very cautious approach in establishing the first school in this area. He enlisted the support of his Session, and then contacted Reverend John Churchill Rudd, Rector of St. John’s Church, and Reverend Thomas Morrell, minister of the Methodist Church, to ask their support. Both men became convinced that the purpose of the proposed Sunday School was good, and the three clergymen began to “sound out” their congregations on the idea. The groundwork was laid in 1812 and 1813.
By the spring of 1814, enough parents were convinced that religious training for their children was a desirable thing, so the school was opened, meeting in the Public Academy located on the north-east corner of the church property. Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Methodist children met together, and were taught by the three ministers, at the first sessions. At once the school was a success, and at the end of the first month, it was necessary to open a second school for the Negro children of the town. The colored Sunday School was taught by a student who was studying theology with Reverend McDowell. An organization calling itself the Free School Association of Elizabethtown was set up to handle the administration of the Sunday Schools, with Miss Maria Smith as superintendent.
According to professor John Fea, chair of the History Department at Messiah University and author of “Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?,” a search of American newspapers and periodicals published in the early 1800s “clearly show that this is a Sunday School.”
“This once again shows that Barton fails to understand the larger context of the periods from which he cherry-picks his facts,” Fea told Right Wing Watch. “It would have taken Barton less than an hour, with the historical databases available to professional historians, or even just a search on Google Books, for him to dig up multiple primary sources showing that the ‘Free School Association of Elizabeth-Town’ was, in fact, a Sunday School. In fact, ‘public schools’ as we know them today did not exist in the early decades of the 19th century. This is the kind of sloppy work—void of any concept of context or change over time—that has characterized Barton’s entire career as a Christian Right activist who raids the past for something useful to help him advance his political agenda in the present.”
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Read the full article. There so much more. No paywall. As Right Wing Watch has exhaustively documented for years, Barton tours the country, telling avid Christian audiences that virtually every line of the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence was taken verbatim from the bible. Barton is such a notorious liar that even his own Christian publishing house retracted his book. And now he’s advising the Speaker of the House.
Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton claims that Patrick Henry and George Washington quoted numerous Bible verses in their speeches and writings. We decided to take a look at Barton's "evidence" and—surprise, surprise—he was lying. https://t.co/6U0sfA5eHdpic.twitter.com/fetyq3BxqF
We hate to sound like a broken record, but if Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton is going to keep making false claims, we're going to keep pointing it out: No, James Kent did not create the federal circuit court system based on the Bible. https://t.co/xG7v7bD7zjpic.twitter.com/SzmWlynPiQ
Pseudo-historian David Barton is constantly finding new "proof" the US was founded as a Christian nation. Lately, he's been claiming that 1st & 2nd grade public schools students in 1816 were required to memorize large portions of the Bible. They weren't. https://t.co/4fWoDnQL0mpic.twitter.com/iam7YY4h7x
the founding fathers knew of the massacres that happened in europe over whether you were protestant or catholic so, of course, they did not want that to happen here, and thus we have freedom of religion. Stupid republicans.
“Many professional historians dismiss Mr. Barton, whose academic degree is in Christian Education from Oral Roberts University, as a biased amateur who cherry-picks quotes from history and the Bible.”
Jay W. Richards, senior fellow at the Christian conservative Discovery Institute, said in 2012 that Barton’s books and videos are full of “embarrassing factual errors, suspiciously selective quotes, and highly misleading claims.”
Same as Creationists who are all lying amateurs who cherry picks quotes, articles, and outdated materials from the Bible, history, and especially science.
so true,some nutcase politician from NC runs bible classes on sunday..tells the kids that satan created ALL the fossil evidence,just to confuse us and ,that the earth is truly only 6k years old (sigh)..Bartons got plenty of company in the b/s dept.
It was noted that Jefferson felt that the inclusion of any Christian language must be excluded, as he felt that in the future, that enlightened Americans would move away from Christianity, but such any Christian language included in the Constitution might invalidate or complicate its interpretation by a more enlightened America.
…And look where we are with theocrats at the gates, claiming gawd is in the Constitution…somewhere.
Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man. -Thomas Jefferson, letter to his nephew “The United States is in no way founded upon the Christian religion.” — George Washington & John Adams in a diplomatic message to Malta “This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.” — John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson “I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.” — Thomas Jefferson “Lighthouses are more useful than churches” — Benjamin Franklin “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva from the brain of Jupiter.” -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Adams
It’s fascinating watching a major country turn into an extremist theocracy in real-time. Historians are gonna have a field-day. Foreign historians, you understand. Only bible history will be allowed in the USA.
Wake up US public. The Christian theocratic take over of the government is well underway. This is just like Afghanistan and Iran, other countries where religions were allowed to start shaping and making the laws. Individual rights, progressive societies, even science and medical knowledge becomes restricted and regressive to a time of what was written in old holy books as people interpret them now for their own power and profit. Lying and out right making things up is OK to these people in order to institute the Christian dominated society ruled by church doctrine rather than by the will or for the good of the people. This fake historian has rewritten history, simply made up stuff, ignored other stuff and has been used for decades in home and religious schools to spread a false fake understanding of history that now those who were taught it as kids are in positions of authority in state legislatures and as judges to enforce those lies and myths. I remember James as a teen coming to our home after school telling us all about how the founding fathers were highly religious Christians, the laws of the country were founded on Moses and the bible, and that worshiping god was why we became an independent nation, because god himself bless his holy Christian nation. And we had to work hard to get back to that ideal so god would be happy and give us more blessing. After all, it was the liberals with their sexual immorality and push to undo gender roles, take women from the home raising children, and perverting god’s ideal lifestyle of marriage and men’s right to dominate. They also were trying to take god away from everyone and all that was making god angry and he might smite all of us. Such nonsense we had to gently correct for him. Then he would go home to his highly religious very unchristian parents who pushed religion but did not live it. It is scary what is happening. We need to stop it. Hard stop. Hugs
Barton has been a staple of Texas’ Christian conservative movement, offering crucial support to politicians and frequently being cited or called on to testify in favor of bills that critics say would erode church-state separations.
David Barton, left, of WallBuilders, poses for photos at a Texas Eagle Forum reception at the Texas Republican Convention in Fort Worth on June 7, 2012. Credit: Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune
For nearly four decades, Texas activist David Barton has barnstormed statehouses and pulpits across the nation, arguing that the separation between church and state is a myth and that America should be run as a Christian nation.
Now, he’s closer to power than perhaps ever before.
One day after little-known Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana was elected as the new House speaker last week, Barton said on a podcast that he was already discussing staffing with Johnson, his longtime ally in deeply conservative, Christian causes.
“We have some tools at our disposal now (that) we haven’t had in a long time,” Barton added.
Johnson recently spoke at an event hosted by Barton’s nonprofit, WallBuilders; he’s praised Barton and his “profound influence on me, and my work, and my life and everything I do”; and, before his career as a lawmaker, Johnson worked for Alliance Defending Freedom — a legal advocacy group that has helped infuse more Christianity into public schools and government, a key goal of Barton’s movement.
Barton, who lives in Aledo, has been a staple of Texas’ own Christian conservative movement, offering crucial public support to politicians and frequently being cited or called on to testify in favor of bills that critics say would erode church-state separations — including in front of the Texas Legislature this year.
Johnson’s election — and his proximity to Barton — is a massive victory for a growing Christian nationalist movement that claims the United States’ foundation was ordained by God, and therefore its laws and institutions should favor their brand of Christianity.
“Johnson’s rise means that Barton and his fellow Christian nationalists now have unprecedented access to the levers of power on the national stage, paralleling the access they already have here in Texas and some other states,” said David Brockman, a non-resident scholar in religion and public policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Barton and Johnson did not respond to requests for comment this week
Barton has spent nearly all of his life in North Texas, save for the few years he spent at Oral Roberts University, an evangelical school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After graduating with a degree in religious education, he returned to Aledo and worked as a math and science teacher, basketball coach and, later, principal at a K-12 school that grew out of his parent’s Bible study group, according to a 2006 Texas Monthly profile of him.
In 1988, Barton founded his group, WallBuilders, to “exert a direct and positive influence in government, education, and the family by educating the nation concerning the Godly foundation of our country” and “providing information to federal, state, and local officials as they develop public policies which reflect Biblical values,” according to the group’s website.
Since then, Barton has been arguably the most influential figure in a growing movement to undermine the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
Barton claims the clause has been misunderstood. He argues that most of the Founding Fathers were “orthodox, evangelical” Christians, and that it would thus be more accurate to read the establishment clause’s use of the word “religion” as a stand-in for “Christian denomination.”
“We would best understand the actual context of the First Amendment by saying, ‘Congress shall make no law establishing one Christian denomination as the national denomination,’” he has said.
Barton also argues that the country’s founders “never intended the First Amendment to become a vehicle to promote a pluralism of other religions.”
In his mind, the wall separating church and state was only meant to extend one way, protecting religion — specifically, Christianity — from the government, but not vice versa.
“‘Separation of church and state’ currently means almost exactly the opposite of what it originally meant,” his group’s website claims.
And he argues that most of what he considers society’s ills — from school shootings, low standardized test scores and drug use to divorce, crime and LGBTQ+ people — are the natural consequences of abandoning the Judeo-Christian virtues, as articulated in his form of Christianity, that he says are the bedrock of the nation’s founding. Sometimes, he’s drawn fire for those views — such as when he said the lack of cure for AIDS was God’s vengeance for homosexuality or when he compared the Third Reich’s “evils” to the “homosexual lifestyle” in 2017.
Barton, a self-styled “amateur historian,” has for years been debunked and ridiculed by actual historians and scholars, who note that he has no formal training and that his work is filled with selectivequotes, mischaracterizations and inaccuracies — critiques that Barton has claimed are mere attacks on his faith. He has been accused of whitewashing the Founding Fathers — particularly, their slave owning — to fit his narrative of a God-ordained nation. He has acknowledged using unconfirmed quotes from historical figures. And Barton’s 2012 book, “The Jefferson Lies,” was so widely panned by Christian academics that it prompted a separate book, “Getting Jefferson Right,” to debunk all of his inaccuracies, and was later pulled by its Christian publisher because “the basic truths just were not there.”
Despite that, Barton has remained a fixture in conservative Christian circles and Republican Party politics. He served as vice chair of the Republican Party of Texas from 1997 to 2006 and, in 2004, was tapped for clergy outreach by President George W. Bush’s reelection campaign. In 2010, his fellow Texan and prominent conservative personality Glenn Beck praised him as “the most important man in America right now.” Barton was an early and important endorser of Sen. Ted Cruz’s unexpected first win in 2012. And in 2016, Barton ran one of multiple super PACs that were crucial to Cruz’s reelection.
“Having David Barton running the super PAC gives it a lot of validity for evangelicals and pastors,” Mike Gonzalez, the South Carolina evangelical chair for the Cruz for President campaign, told the Daily Beast at the time.
In Texas, Barton has become increasingly instrumental among GOP politicians. He and WallBuilders currently work closely with Rick Green, a former state representative and current leader of Patriot Academy, a Dripping Springs-based group that trains young adults, churches and others how to “influence government policy with a Biblical worldview” and borrows heavily from Barton’s teachings.
Barton has also railed against the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits tax-exempt groups, including churches, from direct political advocacy. And he is frequently called on to support laws that would infuse more Christianity into public life — including in public schools. In May, he and his son, Timothy Barton, testified in favor of a bill — which later failed — that would have required all Texas public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments.
During the hearing, Barton’s work was praised as “great” by Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels. His theories were echoed by Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, who said that church-state separation is “not a real doctrine.” And the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, extolled Barton and his son as “esteemed witnesses.”
Other prominent Texas Republicans have similarly echoed Barton’s views, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has called the United States “a Christian nation” and said “there is no separation of church and state. It was not in the Constitution.”
“We were a nation founded upon not the words of our founders, but the words of God because he wrote the Constitution,” Patrick said last year.
The mainstreaming of Barton’s views has corresponded with a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have allowed for a greater infusion of Christianity into the public sphere, and a burgeoning Christian nationalist movement on the right that was turbocharged by former President Donald Trump and his promise to white evangelicals that “Christianity will have power” should they support him.
February polling from the Public Religion Research Institute found that more than half of Republicans adhere to or sympathize with foundational aspects of Christian nationalism, including beliefs that the U.S. should be a strictly Christian nation. Of those respondents, PRRI found, roughly half supported having an authoritarian leader who maintains Christian dominance in society. Experts have also found strong correlations between Christian nationalist beliefs and opposition to immigration, racial justice and religious diversity.
Johnson’s election to House Speaker shows how normalized such beliefs have become, said Amanda Tyler, the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for a strong wall between government and religion. She noted that some Republicans — including U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, have embraced the title of Christian nationalist in recent years.
Tyler said that Johnson’s views are particularly concerning because of his background as both a Southern Baptist and as a constitutional lawyer. Baptists, she noted, have a long history of advocacy for strong church-state separations because of the persecution they faced during the country’s founding — a stance that she said Johnson has betrayed throughout his legal and political career.
“He has worked actively for these principles that further Christian nationalism,” Tyler said. “I am also a Baptist, and to see someone who is a Baptist really reject foundational concepts of religious freedom for all — concepts which are really core to what it means to be a Baptist — is also very disheartening.”
Johnson played a central role in attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election by crafting a legal brief that was signed by more than 100 U.S. House Republicans in support of a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to have election results thrown out in four swing states by President Joe Biden.
At the same time that he was aiding the legal charge to overturn the 2020 election, Johnson was also cultivating closer ties to figures in the New Apolostolic Reformation,a fast-growing movement of ultraconservative preachers, televangelists, self-described prophets and faith healers who abide by the “Seven Mountains Mandate” — a Christian nationalist-adjacent theology that says Christians must fulfill a divine mandate to rule over all seven aspects of society (family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government) in order to usher in the “end times.”
Driven by that theology, New Apolostic Reformation figures played major roles in the lead up to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, combining Trump’s lies about a stolen election with claims that they were engaged in “spiritual warfare” with their political enemies and, thus, extreme and anti-democratic measures were not only necessary, but God-ordained.
Disclosure: Rice University, Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and Texas Monthly have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Read the full article. PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Wommack says homosexuals should have a “warning label on their foreheads.” Wommack says he prayed away “the curse of mildew.” Wommack says Jesus protects Christians from COVID by “turning off your virus receptors.” Two dozen Christians get infected with COVID at Wommack’s illegal bible conference. Wommack says he knows COVID is “no big deal” because his wife and son were “raised from the dead.”
I went to the link in the story above. This guy is one hell of a piece of shit hate preacher. He wants a complete take-over of civilian life, politics, government, every aspect of your life he wants to control. It is a total power grab for him and his followers, in the name of his god of course. Someone has to speak for god, he was just the one chosen to rule your life. Some of the batshit crazy stuff in the article will chill you on what these people believe. And they’re doing it by stealth and then steam rolling over ever right of others to form their perfect society in the name of their god, you know the one that god wants so to hell with your wants or needs. And as you can see they will break the law because god’s will is far more important than the laws of men. Plus once in power they will brook no disagreement with them, 1st amendment be damned. Some quotes listed below. There is much more of the danger these people represent in the article and the Joe My God post also.
“We have enough people here in this school we could elect anybody we want,” he said at a meeting of the Citizen’s Academy, an event held at Charis by the Truth & Liberty Coalition, a nonprofit organization also founded by Wommack.“This county ought to be totally dominated by believers.”
When voters in 30 school districts go to the polls Tuesday (Nov. 7), they will find ballots primed with candidates recruited and trained by Transform Colorado, a movement, launched by Truth & Liberty, “that unites Christian leaders to restore biblical values in the public square,” according to its website.
As in Woodland Park, where Wommack succeeded in getting his chosen candidates elected to City Council and gaining a majority on the school board, the goal, in the words of one victor, is to oppose “the teachers’ union and their psycho agenda.”
Truth & Liberty has lately served as Wommack’s main tool in reversing Colorado’s shift from red to blue, a tragedy he blames on “demonic” liberals. As proof, Wommack has claimed his “spies” in the local school system had found hundreds of obscene books.He warned that public schools taught fourth graders how to have anal sex and that they placed litter boxes in classrooms for students who identified as dogs or cats.
Wommack is harsh in his opposition to LGBTQ rights. The day after five people were killed and 18 injured in a Nov. 19, 2022, shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Wommack said he was “not endorsing” violence against LGBTQ people but complained they received too much sympathy, calling homosexuality “one of the major threats of the devil.”
But once elected, Woodland Park’s new conservative majority worked quickly — sometimes meeting in private, she alleged, in violation of state law — to turn the district upside down.
The district became the first and, so far, only locality in the U.S. to adopt the controversial American Birthright social studies curriculum, which has been rejected by Colorado’s State Board of Education. Since it was adopted, some students have been required to perform make-up work to qualify for college admission.
The school board also put a gag order on faculty and staff who disagreed with the changes, firing some who aired their concerns anyway. Recently, more than 80 teachers and staff signed a letter condemning the new “culture of fear and silence” and calling for solutions that “prioritize our children’s futures over politics.”
The district now budgets more than $200,000 a year for legal fees, more than 10 times its legal budget five years ago.
Despite the controversy, Wommack has given the new board his full support. Charis bused nearly 100 students to a May meeting where a vote was being held to elect a new superintendent, displacing hundreds of parents and teachers who were barred by capacity regulations. Some citizens now gather as much as five hours early at board meetings to make sure they can speak and vote.
Students from Charis, which operates a Practical Government school, also often sign up for many of the limited public speaking slots, using their allotted time to criticize “violent, extreme radicals, communists and socialists taking over our schools.”
Health and wealth preacher Andrew Wommack teaches that Christians should "reform nations" and rule over the godless. His Truth & Liberty Coalition has started by pushing its candidates in some 30 school districts across Colorado. Read the full story:https://t.co/mPdQYmnSwh
People ask: how do we know who the stealth candidates are so we can vote against them? This is how. Look for who the christfascists are voting for and vote for anyone else. It’s not perfect (some can still slip through) but it will help.
I agree with the idea but…how do I find out who the Republicans are supporting? I can sometimes know when I see school board candidates signs on the same lawn as a Trump one but, mostly, I have to try and read between the lines on their webpages to see if they’re idiots or not…and some hide it really well!
They’re not just targeting trans kids. For example, in states where these extremists have seized control of education, they’ve banned books, pedagogical content and practices and entire subjects, adopted curricula and standards and materials that turn the clock waaaay back on the rights and recognition of BBIMP, immigrants, Jews, people practicing minority religions, women and girls, disabled people as well LGBTQI+ people.
A wonderful post. I got the link from https://poodyheads.wordpress.com/2023/11/02/stop-trying-to-hide-s-e-x-from-students-in-school-they-already-know-all-about-it-from-the-internet/ and adult who thinks kids own bodies are not driving their innocent angels to pleasure are beyond stupid. Most of them deny their own preteen / teen years. Heck, can any of us at any number claim to know that we did not know that rubbing and touching ourselves felt good. I remember as a 14 yr old seeing a classmate rub his junk on a counter and I wondered if he knew he was doing it. He knew it felt good, or he wouldn’t have been doing it. But yes kids often younger than age 8 know it feels good to touch themselves. Why do you think adults get so upset and punish toddlers for doing that in public, because the youngest kids know it feels good, and the adults want them to feel shame over it and do it sneakily in private.
Of course as the post hints to abused kids like me knew all those things. I can not remember the first times I was abused sexually I was so young. But I knew about touch, how to touch, what happened at the end that made the abuser happy when the white stuff came out. You know what I did not know? That I could have gotten help! That it could have stopped! The reason I did not know that is because the right to my body was not taught in my schools back in the late 1960s. The idea of consent or where to go if an adult uses you was not taught. No kid knows about that so lets not burden with it, was the idea. Think of the abused kids lives could be saved and changed if the fundamentalist Christians would move aside and let schools educate kids. Then I remember, a lot of the Christian churches have huge sexual abuse of children scandals. Then I remember that every attempt to raise the age young girls can be forced into a legal marriage, which in many red / religious states is 12, and the Christian religious leaders come out strongly to defeat those bills / laws. I wonder why? Would they be just as happy with a 12-year-old boy being required to marry an adult man? Anyway here is the post and it is a great one. Hugs. Scottie
“Mr. Singer, do you know what foot finder is?”
“No,” I said to the 5th grade girl in the class where I was substitute teaching.
Her friends and her giggled through an explanation of the Website where people post pictures of their feet for sexual gratification.
***
Several days later, I tried to play a video on ancient Rome for my students, but before it even began the 8th grade class burst into laughter over the station identification.
The video was produced by the British Broadcasting Company. The BBC.
I looked at them in confusion until I heard some of them muttering about “Big Black Cock” – a class of porn video many of them had seen online identified with the same abbreviation.
***
Yesterday I overheard some of the girls in my 7th grade homeroom talking. One girl was saying how she really liked a certain boy but wasn’t sure if she was ready.
I smiled thinking about my first kiss. Then I heard her ask a friend, “Can you get pregnant from swallowing it?”
This is middle school, people.
Most of the kids here already know about sex. They know way more than I did at their age. But what they know is a jumble of images and details without the big picture.
And here come Republicans with a bunch of copycat laws to make sure public schools do nothing to dispel children’s ignorance.
In my home state of Pennsylvania, GOP lawmakers are taking action once again to hide any mention of S-E-X in schools throughout the Commonwealth.
For kids in kindergarten through 8th grade, this even includes books with depictions of any kind of nudity.
God forbid they saw a wee wee or a va-jay-jay!
Fun fact: did you know that most public school students have genitals?
It’s true.
Many boys have access to a penis anytime they want – in their underwear.
Many girls have access to even naughtier bits.
And don’t even get me started on nipples! Under their shirts, the Devil’s raisins!
Thankfully the GOP legislation only prohibits depictions of these things in books. Kids are still allowed to look at their own bodies.
For now.
The bill passed the Senate in a 29-21 vote nearly along party lines, with only one Democrat supporting the proposal. It faces an uncertain future in the House where Democrats hold a one seat majority and would also require the signature of Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro before becoming law.
A similar measure was passed before Democrats took the House last year but was vetoed by the previous Democratic Governor Tom Wolf.
If the new bill became law, districts would need to go through all books in their libraries and classrooms and list any that contain potentially sexual material. These would be books used in classroom instruction or available in the library that would then require parents to sign an opt-in form to grant permission for their children to access the books.
The bill defines sexually explicit as showing “acts of masturbation, sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality or physical contact with a person’s clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if the person is a female, breast.”
Schools can provide a safe place to discuss issues kids may be uncomfortable talking about with other adults. Books provide a safe way to mentally grapple with concepts and ideas of the adult world.
For example, in my 7th grade classes, we read “Silent to the Bone” by E.L. Konigsburg. The book is about a middle school age boy who has gone mute after a questionable interaction with an adult.
There’s nothing very graphic in the text, but among other issues it does discuss physical attraction, sexual coercion and an erection.
The book was approved by the school board and has helped foster many productive – if uncomfortable – conversations that help kids put their thoughts on these matters into words.
In my daughter’s school, in 9th grade she read “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book is about a high school girl dealing with being raped and the stigma of trying to talk about it.
The text does a marvelous job of getting into the point of view of the girl and the trauma she endures while still being humorous, touching and empowering.
Narratives like these are absolutely vital. They allow kids to relate to issues many of them have not directly experienced (but some have) and find a common language to discuss it. When we censor sex and sexuality and paint all of it as something dirty that can’t be talked about seriously, we do our children a major disservice.
Conservatives complain that talking about these things grooms kids for greater sexual activity, but that’s nonsense. Kids grow into adults many of whom become sexually active. That’s positive and healthy. Meeting that in the safe places of the classroom and books helps kids prepare for adulthood without becoming victimized.
Finally, let’s consider the amount of ridiculous extra work this bill demands of schools and teachers. You really expect every educator with a classroom library to go through every book in it looking for anything that someone might consider sexually explicit!? Some people might think a book about a kid with two daddies is sexually explicit. You want teachers to become your perverted morality police!? Please!
I dearly hope this bill has little chance of passing.
It’s a way of insinuating that public schools are doing things they aren’t.
No school is indoctrinating kids to be sexually active. But kids are coming into contact with sexually explicit material – usually on the Internet – and they have few tools to deal with it.
This is 4 years old and I guess the person speaking is from England. But this is a great talk. It covers so much of what I want to say. It explains why the don’t say gay laws that in so many red states are so dangerous and harmful. Please take 13 minutes and 41 seconds to learn about this issue, learn why it is so important to gay kids to see themselves in the surrounding society, and that yes there are gay kids, even young kids that know they are different, know they are gay, and are scared / worried about it that need support with love. I love the question he asks, when was your child too young to learn about being straight? Because from birth all around them kids see straight couples and symbols of being straight in society. The same with gender, the haters say they don’t want the children to be taught gender in schools as they claim it sexualizes them. But society is structured around gender. We learn it from birth with nursery colors, types of toys, and the clothing we are put in. Hugs. Scottie
Can a child be too young to learn about being LGBT? The answer: no child is ever too young. In this humorous and moving talk, Tim Ramsey argues that only when every parent explores about LGBT identities with their child from birth will we address the well being crisis facing LGBT young people.
Tim Ramsey, the founder of award-winning non-profit Just Like Us, grew up believing that being gay was the worst thing he could be. Having come out, Tim launched Just Like Us to change the lives of other LGBT+ school students by empowering young people to challenge prejudice and champion LGBT+ equality at school and work. As the founder of School Diversity Week, the national celebration of LGBT+ equality in education, Tim has involved over 650,000 school students and teachers work to ensure every young person can be themselves and their best at school.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx Can a child be too young to learn about being LGBT? The answer: no child is ever too young. In this humorous and moving talk, Tim Ramsey, Founder of award-winning LGBT non-profit Just Like Us, argues that only when every parent explores about LGBT identities with their child from birth will we address the wellbeing crisis facing LGBT young people. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
Lynchburg, Virginia USA – April 14, 2023 – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaking at Liberty University on April 14, 2023.Photo: Shutterstock
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently sent a message to his followers comparing LGBTQ+-inclusive elementary school teachers to Hamas fighters who have gunned down and kidnapped Israeli civilians.
“I have seen the Left’s indoctrination dangerously worsen in the last couple of decades — from student organizations praising Hamas at Ivy Leagues to elementary school teachers pushing radical gender ideology down the throats of first graders,” DeSantis’ message said, according to Florida Politics.
Don’t Say Gay laws and “parents rights” groups are all part of a plan to completely defund public education.
On October 7, Hamas members gunned down Jewish settlers, worshippers, and attendees of an electronic music festival; launched rocket attacks; and took women and children hostage. Their attacks have ignited a long-simmering military conflict with Israel as the neighboring countries battle over control of the region.
DeSantis has claimed that some pro-Palestinian U.S. student groups, like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), are “pro-Hamas” and want a “second Holocaust.” While Hamas is an Islamist militant movement and one of the Palestinian territories’ two major political parties, supporters of Palestine don’t automatically support Hamas or its actions. Nevertheless, DeSantis has ordered his state’s universities to disband SJP groups, threatening to persecute and cut government funding to them otherwise.
DeSantis is equating support for Hamas with elementary school teachers who support LGBTQ+-inclusive student policies (or “radical gender ideology,” as DeSantis calls it), such as allowing trans students to use names, pronouns, and bathrooms matching their gender identities.
Palestine Legal, a group that provides legal support for pro-Palestinian groups, says that DeSantis’ ban on SJP groups is part of his larger effort to restrict freedom of speech on campuses.
“Florida, particularly under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, has been actively undermining education, freedom of speech, and social justice movements, including by banning anti-racist courses and trying to criminalize protests. It is not surprising that this egregious move to silence the student movement for Palestinian rights is being pursued under DeSantis,” it said Wednesday in a statement, according to WJTV. “If it goes unchallenged, no one’s political beliefs will be safe from government suppression.”
Wow, really pushing the religious idea a woman’s place is to obey the men in her life, she is owned by her husband, and along with the misogyny of strict 1950s gender role there is the long debunked idea of what makes kids gay, only now just pushed on to trans kids also. These people simply refuse to accept modern science which has shown that kids are born with their sexual orientation and their view of their gender identity. Regardless of how often, how forceful, how authoritarian the person telling them they are not gay, gay kids know they are. Same with trans kids, despite the same people telling them they are the gender they were assigned at birth, they KNOW who they really are inside. But this is what we face with the religious Nationalist right wing take over and push to return to the 1950s. These are the same people that deny other science because their bibles / really their preachers / priest / pastors tell them that science is wrong because the bible is right. These same people claim there was a worldwide flood and that an ark built by a 600-year-old man held every creature on earth, and also the world is only 6000 years old so that same family had a lot of fucking / child birthing to do to get to the number of humans alive today. None of it makes sense if you try to take it literally. But they don’t care, their feelings / beliefs are more important than reality or facts. They feel the same on sexual / gender issues. Yet in at least 26 US states these people have the majority in government. Can the US afford this? Hugs. Scottie.
It also tells dads to go on “man time” dates with their sons and make them do manly things like hunt animals and mow the lawn.
The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) — a Christian anti-LGBTQ+ hate group that uses its professional-sounding name to push transphobic and anti-abortion propaganda — has unveiled a new website encouraging parents to send their trans kids to conversion therapy. The website tells mothers not to be “dominant” and not to be “critical” of nor “display hurt or angry emotions” towards their husbands.
The website, called the “Biological Integrity Initiative,” offers outdated and non-clinically backed “resources” for parents, teens, physicians, schools, and policymakers, all geared towards denying the identities of trans youth, particularly those of trans girls. It introduces gender-questioning teens to the tale of right-wing de-transitioner Chloe Cole, tells teachers to oppose trans-inclusive school policies (referred to as “gender interventions”), and tells policymakers that they must pass bans on gender-affirming healthcare to “protect civilization” and “human dignity.”
It tells mothers not to be critical of their husbands or “overly sensitive” to their sons. Mothers are advised to frequently “compliment the father” and to refrain from showing their children any “angry emotions” towards their husbands. It also tells mothers to “set a good example of womanhood” for their daughters because, if they don’t, their daughters may “develop a wrong perception… and may resist embracing a female identity.”
“A mother who is not emotionally connected to her daughter may leave her daughter craving motherly love. Likewise, a father who is not closely connected to his son may leave a son craving fatherly love,” the site’s handout on “Affirming Your Daughter’s and Son’s Sexual Identity” states.
“Mothers should not favor a son over his father, even if the son is more responsive and compassionate than the husband,” the handout continues. “If mothers make this mistake, the son may identify with the mother and fail to bond with the father.”
This concept — that emotionally distant and physically unaffectionate parents create gay or “gender-confused” children — is a popular but widely debunked concept from 19th-century Freudian psychology. While psychologists have observed that neglected and abused children may risk their personal safety to find support and affection from other sources, there’s zero proof that parental distance causes homosexuality or trans identity.
Similarly, the handout says that molestation, sexual abuse, and graphic pornography can cause trans identity. The same has been said of homosexuality, and there is no proof to back up either claim.
The group tells fathers to be “physically active” and “wrestle on the floor” with their sons, “play tackle and praise him for being tough when he is knocked down,” and also to go on “man time” dates with the boy. It also tells dads to have their sons help mow the lawn, fix the toilet, shovel snow, build model cars and benches, go hunting to kill animals, and “throw, kick and dribble a ball… even if he chooses not to play sports.”
Under the website’s “Teen FAQ,” it states, “There is no evidence that opposite-sex hormones make you feel better,” even though a large-scale 2023 study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that hormone therapy improves mental health for trans youth. The FAQ also claims that “opposite sex hormones can increase thoughts of hurting yourself,” “increase unhealthiness,” “may cause permanent infertility,” and “will make teens ‘a medical patient for life.’”
The site backs up some of its claims by referring to a 12-year-old Swedish study of data on 324 trans people collected from 1973 to 2003. The study found higher rates of suicide and criminal convictions among trans individuals, but such actions may be explained by transphobia and the fewer economic opportunities and social support resources for trans people.
As for “infertility,” trans journalist Erin Reed noted that fertility counseling is a regular part of any medical care for trans youth. Reed said that the ACPeds site pushes gender exploratory therapy, “a new type of conversion therapy which seeks to persuade transgender individuals that their gender identity stems from anything but authentic transness.” The ACPeds website’s “Find a Therapist” section links to numerous Christian and Catholic conversion therapy groups.
In her newsletter, Reed wrote, “The Gender Exploratory Therapy Association frequently denies that it engages in conversion therapy. They assert that their therapeutic approach is ‘neutral in nature’ and ‘does not prejudge outcomes.’ Yet, this association opposes bans on conversion therapy, submits public comments in favor of blocking Title IX protections against gender discrimination for trans students, and its official account has been observed endorsing tweets like ‘trans healthcare is the latest in a long line of medical fads.’ Such actions hardly mirror the claims of a ‘neutral, non-prejudiced’ entity.”
By Kyle Mantyla | September 21, 2022 10:41 am
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Lynchburg, Virginia USA – April 14, 2023 – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaking at Liberty University on April 14, 2023.Photo: Shutterstock
Photo: Shutterstock
