Christofascists Make Their Move in Oklahoma

The MAGA pseudo-Christians in the USA have recently been making bold moves toward implementing their oppressive theocracy and making Gilead a reality in their states. Louisiana required one of the two biblical Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom (albeit without identifying which of the two even though they have significant differences). Now Oklahoma has decreed that “all schools must incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments in curriculums.”

No one is surprised that when ranking education in the 50 states, these are always rated among the lowest: in recent scores Oklahoma ranks 49th in K-12 and Louisiana 40th. And it’s also no surprise that Repugnican-controlled states are all among the lowest rated because that’s part of their platform: keeping the young populace uneducated, ignorant, and steeped in pseudo-Christian theology so they will grow up to be MAGA cultists. Only stupid people vote MAGA.*

According to the story on CNN, “Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters said the Bible is “one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution and the birth of our country… the Bible is a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country…”

Which, of course, is codswallop. Revisionist Talibangelist history is being used to justify their theocratic decrees. America’s “Founding Fathers” were not the religious zealots the Talibangelists like to paint them. Those Founding Fathers were not the “cheery Christian soldiers” modern pseudo-Christians imagine them to be, and while some were Christians, others were Deists, and some were likely even atheists. But facts never matter to MAGA cultists.

Walters said, “Every classroom in the state from grades 5 through 12 must have a Bible and all teachers must teach from the Bible in the classroom.” Like most pseudo-Christian MAGA cultists, Walters didn’t say which bible to read from, nor did he explain that no one would be reading from the actual source material, but rather from a translation — of which there are many — unless he also plans to teach classical Hebrew and Koine Greek (and possibly Latin)  to elementary school students. But there are many variations in how that multitude of translations manage the text, and those differences matter to many sects.

CNN reported:

Interfaith Alliance, a national organization that seeks to protect religious freedoms, told CNN in a statement Thursday: “This is blatant religious coercion that should have absolutely no place in public schools – in Oklahoma or any other state.”
“True religious freedom means ensuring that no one religious group is allowed to impose their viewpoint on all Americans. The vast majority of people of faith in this country reject these dangerous, intimidating efforts to force a Christian nationalist agenda into our schools, our courts and our government,” the statement said.

But religious freedom is the very opposite of what these Christofascists want. They want enforcement of their own peculiar and repressive pseudo-Christian views: a white supremacist, misogynist, bow-down-to-the-rich, anti-science faith. These are the book banners and book burners; these are the people who won’t allow schools to teach about the racist history of the USA, or about slavery and the genocide of native peoples. These are the people who ban same-sex marriage and abortion, and repeal laws against pollution and child labour.

Why are these MAGA cultist states doing this now? Because they believe that, if their saviour and lord, Donald Trump, wins the election, he will bring in sweeping laws to turn the USA into the oppressive theocracy they so desire, change the Constitution to enforce their pseudo-Christian beliefs, and stack the Supreme Court with even more lifetime, malleable, corrupt judges than it already to make sure there can be no legal opposition to their religious dictatorship.

They are right about one thing: Trump will usher in a new era of extreme, vindictive dictatorship and he will ensure SCOTUS continues to do his bidding, although how far he continues to pander to the Christofascists once he has secured his power remains to be seen. One only needs to look to Germany in the 1930s to see what America will become under Trump.

Notes:

* Other rankings have similarly abysmal levels for the two states. Scholaroo has Oklahoma as 44th and Louisiana as 49th; the Education Week 2021 report gives both states a “D” for K-12 Achievement (putting them in the bottom six of US states). Business Insider’s ranking has Louisiana at 48th and Oklahoma at 39th overall, but for K-12 the rankings are 46th and 43rd respectively. The US Department of Education has these two states among the bottom ten in almost every category for proficiency in reading and mathematics. The CATO Institute ranks Oklahoma 41st and Louisiana 47th in K-12 education quality. Both states are run, as you might guess, by MAGA Repugnicans.

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