Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jarrell on August 11, 2009 at 10:32am

This guy is obviously insane...

Permalink Reply by Vanessa on August 11, 2009 at 12:52pm

ugh, if this country ever went the way this guy wants, I will happily leave it forever.

Permalink Reply by Jason G on August 11, 2009 at 1:40pm

Perfect reason to sign

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=QGIFlygR...

Permalink Reply by Ogden Lafaye on December 7, 2009 at 11:50pm

Signed and done

Permalink Reply by Jaclyn Nicole on August 12, 2009 at 6:02pm

I gave a speech about this today. The Texas SBOE is losing it. The Texas Freedom Network seems to have it under control though. There were 6 "experts" appointed to the panel for the revisions. 3 are qualified accredited historians and 3 are right-wing nuts with no accreditation and with the mindset to destroy the separation of church and state. I would like to encourage everyone to become a freedom fighter and join The Texas Freedom Network. Educate yourselves on this issue and fight back! www.tfn.org

Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on August 12, 2009 at 6:53pm

I believe that the preservation of the separation of church and state is the most important battle facing us today. We actually have a local political action organizer, a supposed Libertarian (who just happens to also belong to the John Birch Society -- in the 21st century!!!) whose website for an organization he started called South Texans for the Constitution claims that the Declaration of Independence is "a Christian document." This is a dead giveaway to their ulterior motives, and although the guy claims that he started his group to help get Ron Paul elected, I suspect that Texas Rep. Ron Paul (a Republican) would want nothing to do with a separationist group. (And I mean that last word as a double entendre, as these louts also support our wonderful governor's idea Texas should secede from the Union. Didn't we already fight that war?) I probably will have to go to one of their meetings to challenge this guy, pointing out that many of the signers of the Declaration were deists (who did NOT think Jebus was divine, much less the son of "God" and who dissed all claims of the miraculous as silly superstitions. In effect, what deists believed was that a creator deity (hence, "endowed by their creator") put things in place, then forgot about us. In fact, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were both virulently anti-Christer. I recently asked this group if you had any association like this one where you live, but now I see that half the state board of education thinks the same way. I am glad Mexico is only 185 miles away. I may yet emigrate.

Permalink Reply by Cynthia Keaton on September 13, 2009 at 1:27am

Isn't Mexico catholic? I often feel like emigrating somewhere also but I haven't found a good place yet.

Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on September 13, 2009 at 9:04am

Yes Mexico is Catholic, but they do not expect you to be. In fact, their government has a long history of anticlericalism. At one time, for example, it was illegal to hold mass, illegal for priests to wear clerical garb, illegal for the church to own property. These reforms were relaxed to some extent in succeeding regimes, but former President Lazaro Cardenas' socialism is still popular in Mexico, where the indigenous people view Catholicism with mixed emotions. On the one hand, they are Catholic themselves (although in places like Chiapas, they mix their Catholicism with their pre-Columbian faith and, oddly, at least in San Juan Chamula, a cult of John the Baptist), they have elephants' memories, mainly of the fact that the hated Conquistadores brought Catholic missionaries along with them. In some cases, the Catholic priesthood even built their cathedrals literally on top of pre-Columbian temples: e.g. Cholula's famous site. I never felt the least bit uneasy around the Catholic faith in Mexico and in fact, some of the cathedrals are major sightseeing attractions, like the church, Santa Maria de Tonanzintla, near Cholula.

Permalink Reply by John Smith on August 17, 2009 at 1:19pm

If you havent already, you should take a look at the link Jason G left. I've been trying to get people to sign it. I've even gotten some christians to sign it just because not all of them are crazy enough to try to change what kids are taught about the history of the U.S.

Permalink Reply by Shamar on September 13, 2009 at 4:13pm

signed!