The State Board of Education (SBOE) is one of the most important elections this year as fundamentalists seek to indoctrinate Texas school children.
Growing up, I don’t remember ever hearing about “Judeo-Christian values” or “Judeo-Christian traditions.” However, I’ve been active in the political process for over 20 years, and it wasn’t until these last few years that I started hearing far-right Conservatives talk about “Judeo-Christian.” So now that they’ve added it in the TEKS, I decided to take a deeper look at what that means and what Republicans are planning on teaching school children.
Where can you find the TEK recommendations, and what did they say?
The actual document can be found HERE (on page 78), and the webpage to get to the document can be found HERE (under Work Groups A and C: Draft Recommendations). Here is what it says:
Describe the impact of major influences on the foundation of the United States Constitution, including Judeo-Christian legal tradition (the Ten Commandments), the Iroquois Confederacy, English common law, the Enlightenment, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation.
According to Washington Jewish Weekly, the term is often used to reject secular values and Muslims. It essentially says our values are not the values of the Enlightenment or the Constitution, but instead our values are the values of the Bible. Which is why you will only hear Conservatives using this term.
Far-right figures use this politically charged term instead of any serious political commentary.
The phrase “Judeo-Christian” has been around since the 1930s, but Trump resurrected it in a speech on October 13, 2017, in which he said: “We are stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values … We’re saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”
The Conversation laid out why the term is a dog-whistle myth peddled by the far right and how “Judeo-Christian” is now most often used to draw a line between imagined Christian values and a perceived (but false) threat of Muslim immigration.
The Constitution of the United States of America was written about 150 years before the term “Judeo-Christian” even existed.
It becomes problematic because Texas Republicans intend to teach children a historical lie based on far-right fundamentalist ideology. It’s propaganda, brainwashing, and indoctrination. This particular propaganda intentionally is aimed at discluding Muslims, Atheists, and other secular religions in place of Conservative Christian ideology in reference to our nation’s founding.
Why would the SBOE allow this?
Because after decades of voter oppression and voter apathy in Texas, the SBOE is full of right-wing fundamentalists who subscribe to Lost Cause Ideology and think pushing their religion is more important than teaching our children the truth.
Luckily for Texas, every one of their seats is up for re-election this year. The current makeup of the SBOE is 9 Republicans/6 Democrats. So we must hold on to our seats and flip at least two more.
Here are the Democrats running for the SBOE this year:
| Democrat | Republican | |
|---|---|---|
| SBOE-01 | Melissa Ortega website – Facebook – Twitter | Michael “Travis” Stevens |
| SBOE-02 | Victor Perez | LJ Francis |
| SBOE-03 | Marisa Perez-Diaz | Ken Morrow |
| SBOE-04 | Staci Childs website | N/A |
| SBOE-05 | Rebecca Bell-Metereau website – Facebook – Twitter | Mark Loewe |
| SBOE-06 | Michelle Palmer website – Facebook – Twitter | Will Hickman |
| SBOE-07 | Daniel Hochman | Julie Pickren |
| SBOE-08 | N/A | Audrey Young |
| SBOE-09 | N/A | Keven Ellis |
| SBOE-10 | N/A | Tom Maynard |
| SBOE-11 | Luis Sifuentes website – Facebook | Patricia “Pat” Hardy |
| SBOE-12 | Alex Cornwallis website – Facebook – Twitter | Pam Little |
| SBOE-13 | Aicha Davis Facebook – Twitter | Katherine Monette |
| SBOE-14 | Tracy Fisher website – Facebook – Twitter | Evelyn Brooks |
| SBOE-15 | N/A | Aaron Kinsey |
If you aren’t sure which SBOE district you’re in, you can look that up HERE.
What future do you want for Texas?
The future that Republicans want is millions indoctrinated into white supremacy and Christo-fascist values. If we don’t vote every single one of them out, that’s exactly what we’ll get. A new generation of children who don’t know America’s history and believe the Constitution is based on Christianity.
Voting is the only way we’re going to save our state.
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