OK State Superintendent Ryan Walters Wants Even More Bibles, Prayers For The Dear Leader

Too Much Free Time

from the holy-shit dept

Whatever your politics, there can be no arguing that the election of Donald Trump once more to the highest office in the land has served as a permission slip for some of the worst people in the country to behave badly. We’re already seeing this in all sorts of ways, from incel fuckwits telling women that it’s “Your body, my choice, forever“, to obviously racist and antisemetic public displays, and so on. Note that I am not laying these occurrences squarely at the feet of Donald Trump as though he specifically ordered that any of this occur, but it is a simple, inconvenient fact that these assholes pulling this crap are his fans and voters. And until the man specifically decries these horrible things, he tacitly endorses them.

The same would be true of Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ actions. We last discussed Walters over his plans to use taxpayer money to buy 55,000 bibles for the state’s public schools. Notably, the initial ask included a very specific set of specs for these bibles, with which essentially only Trump’s perverse God Bless The U.S.A. Bible complied. After a bipartisan backlash, which Walters of course blamed on “leftists,” the spec list was changed so that more bibles would fit the bill. But if you thought that this signaled that Walters would stop treating Trump’s boots like a lollipop, you were wrong.

The most recent news is that Walters has announced that 500 bibles have already been purchased for public schools, specifically for AP courses on government. This comes with language that attempts to couch the purchase as being for historical purposes, which is absolutely absurd.

In a news release, Walters said the Bibles would be used in Advanced Placement government classrooms across the state. He said the move represented “the first in the nation Bible purchase explicitly for use in schools as an academic and literary resource,” and described the purchase as “the first step toward providing Bibles for every classroom in the state.”

“We are focused on ensuring we get Bibles available in every classroom in our state as quickly as we can,” Walters said in a news release. 

Notably absent from the announcement was any indication of how many copies of other religious texts had been purchased for schools as well. No mention of any purchases of the Qur’an, the Hadith, the Torah, the Talmud, the Vedas, the Adi Granth, the Avesta, nor even the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And that’s sort of a big problem when it comes to what Walters is attempting here, given the collision course he is currently on with the First Amendment. The government is to take no stance on matters of religion and forcing exactly one very specific religious text into classrooms is as naked a violation of the First Amendment as I can recall.

And Walters can attempt to portray this as necessary in order to teach the foundational history of America, but that is plainly bullshit. One does not need the full copy of a religious text, to which not all founding fathers subscribed mind you, in order to learn about the importance of religion to the history of the country. You can find evidence of its importance in the same fucking First Amendment that Walters is currently attempting to violate. That amendment’s inspiration, Jefferson’s Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, was specifically designed to uncouple his state’s government from the Church of England, with a primary aim to protect other religions in the state, such as Catholicism and those of Jewish faith. Hell, at least some number of the founding fathers weren’t Christian at all, but rather Deists. So where the hell are the Deist texts in Oklahoma classrooms? You know, for historical purposes and such?

Conversations on the historical nature of religion in America are perfectly valid and fun, frankly, but they would also be entirely wasted calories when it comes to Walters. He’s not interested in any of this. And if you think he is, that is belied by his other demand of the public schools under his care.

State Superintendent Ryan Walters sent superintendents an email Thursday afternoon mandating districts show students a video of him announcing the new Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism and inviting students into a prayer for President-elect Donald Trump, among other topics.

In the video, Walters says the “radical left” is attacking religious liberty in schools, patriotism is being “mocked,” and there is “a hatred for this country pushed by woke teachers’ unions.”

He invites the students to pray with him, clarifying they don’t have to join in.

“I pray for our leaders to make the right decisions,” Walters said. “I pray in particular for President Donald Trump and his team as they continue to bring about change to the country.”

Nothing like a little newspeak mixed in with a healthy dose of hypocrisy, apparently. The name of his manufactured office is negated by his own actions. This isn’t practicing religious liberty; that’s what Jefferson did. This is the state government favoring one specific religious text as the expense of every other religious text. That’s the opposite of religious freedom.

And to demand, nay, mandate what is essentially the indoctrination of school-aged children into the political opinions of one man, from one party, with not a care in the world for the 32% of voters who didn’t vote for Walters’ preferred candidate or party, is bonkers. And before we get comments about how “Wah, the left has been indoctrinating kids in schools for years,” please show me where a member of the left mandated the viewing of a video by school children that specifically negatively portrays the other political side as hating the country, or attacking religious liberty. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

All the worse is subjecting these same children to a call for prayer for a man who is quite plainly as un-Christian a person as we’ve ever had serve in the Oval Office. This is pure boot-licking behavior from a person whom everyone agrees is merely vying of a position in Trump’s government.

Republican President-elect Donald Trump is quickly filling out his incoming Cabinet, and Walters’ name has been mentioned by some national news outlets as a potential pick for education secretary or adviser.

Exactly correct. Walters is using both the real religious beliefs of those within his state and freaking children in order to advance his own political career.

Somehow, it strains the mind to imagine Christ approving of any of this. Regardless of that, all of this should be struck down as violating the Constitution.

Filed Under: bibles, donald trump, oklahoma, prayer in school, religion, ryan walters, schools, separation of church and state