The Texas Board of Education voted 10-5 yesterday against a proposal to teach high school students about the constitutional separation of church and state. Apparently some are hoping if we don't teach about it, it will just go away.
Board members defeated an amendment by member Mavis Knight, D-Dallas, that would have required students to examine the reasons the Founding Fathers "protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others."
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But many religious conservatives – including a board-appointed curriculum expert – contend that separation of church and state was established in the law only by activist judges and not the Constitution or Bill of Rights.Republicans said Knight's proposed requirement was based on an inaccurate interpretation of what the Founding Fathers wanted.
[UPDATE: The Board has voted 10-5 to approve changes to the Social Studies curriculum. The NYTimes reports:
The conservative members maintain that they are trying to correct what they see as a liberal bias among the teachers who proposed the curriculum. To that end, they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution.
“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”
The Texas Freedom Network offers this press release in response.]
