David Barton, the evangelical activist and historian, has been contracted to write a God-centric government textbook for use in public schools.
Tim Barton broadcast a meeting on Periscope that he and his father had with representatives from the Dallas-Fort Worth area Gateway Church about drafting a curriculum that could be taught in conjunction with Barton’s Foundations of Freedom DVD series, Right Wing Watch reports.
That DVD series, which features appearances from right-wing law professors and conservative celebrities like Glenn Beck and former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), purports to show how the Founding Fathers used the Bible as a blueprint for America’s constitution and system of law.
In the meeting, Barton told the representatives from Gateway Church that he was undertaking another, similar attempt to create resources that will help insert God into the teaching of American government and history.
“I just contracted,” Barton says, “about two weeks ago, we’re doing a government textbook, a national government textbook but it will be very much in this kind of vein, but it will meet the Texas TEKS [educational] standards and all the national standards for any state, it can be used in any state, except it will have a lot of God in it.”
The Periscope video also shows Barton talking about his concerns about the curriculum standards for things like the Advanced Placement U.S. History course, which he claims paint a negative image of the United States.
The video shows that both Bartons, father and son, believe that history has been corrupted by a liberal bias in education, and claim that even Christian professors or those who work at Christian colleges have been “indoctrinated” into teaching contemporary understandings of American history. They claim the intent behind this “indoctrination” is to keep America secular and erase all references to religion in order to silence Christians. That’s why they claim it’s necessary to return references to Christianity and Christian-based principles back to education and “rewrite” the textbooks “in the right direction.”
Further underscoring the Bartons’ own conservative bias, at one point in the video, Tim Barton goes off on a tangent about how most college students have been indoctrinated to be accepting of transgender identity, to the gasps and exclamations of dismay from the church members in attendance.
“After we get done with this, our next project is to write a history curriculum,” David Barton says in the video. “We’ve got these old history books and you cannot read an old history book without seeing God all over the place because God was just involved.”
Watch a short clip of Barton talking about his work below:
Voters in Huntington Beach, California, a Los Angeles exurb in Orange County, approved a measure last week to ban the Pride flag and any other non-governmental banners on city property. The move is part of a larger right-wing push against LGBTQ visibility.
While only 31% of registered voters showed up at the polls in this year's presidential primary, the primary ballot also featured Measure B, which sought to limit the types of flags displayed on government property. Nearly 58% of those voters endorsed the measure, according to county election results.
Moving forward, any flag representing a political or social cause, such as breast cancer awareness, a specific religion, or a specific community -- such as the LGBTQ community -- will not be permitted to fly on city-owned flagpoles.
It's a little late, but still seasonal. Happy First Contact Day! This Star Trek holiday, April 5, commemorates the fictional arrival of extraterrestrial aliens in 2063. I may have enjoyed a really lovely Easter brunch this year, amid Holi and Ramadan/Eid al-Fitr, and Passover barely more than a week away, but I'm no Christian, nor any of the other recognized options.
My fantastical faith, however, has many of the traditional trappings. You want a savior to be tested in the desert? As third officer on a Pan Am flight from Karachi to Istanbul in 1947, Gene Roddenberry, who later created Star Trek, was the ranking officer to survive that ill-fated flight's crash landing in the Syrian desert.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!