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Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, isn’t the only elected official who believes President-elect Barack Obama is a Marxist. A Republican congressman from Georgia, Paul Broun, apparently agrees that, by golly, he just might be a commie. He says a general proposal Sen. Obama made during the campaign to create a civilian force for protecting national security is just what the Soviet Union did.

“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force. I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”

He’s right, of course. He does sound crazy. But it gets worse. Congressman Broun apparently also worries that Sen. Obama is a Nazi. Really. He says Sen. Obama will ban gun ownership if he does create a civilian national security force during his administration.

“We can’t be lulled into complacency. You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I’m not… Read More

The firestorm over Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar’s vicious Internet rant against President-elect Barack Obama is growing. Blogs ranging from Daily Kos to the Texas Observer and points in between are calling out Dunbar’s venomous charge (among others) that Obama is a traitor who “truly sympathizes” with enemies out to destroy America. Dunbar also questioned Obama’s American citizenship and his legal eligibility to serve as president, and she warned that he will try to grab more power by declaring martial law as president. The Austin American-Statesman this weekend published a scathing editorial calling Dunbar “a disgrace to public education and an embarrassment to Texas.”

It appears that the Christian Worldview Network Web site has now taken down Dunbar’s outrageous diatribe. But it’s still available at Just Orb, God bless ’em. (In an earlier essay on another Web site, Dunbar suggested that Obama is a Marxist.)… Read More

The New Yorker magazine has published a fascinating piece that asks why so many evangelical teen-agers become pregnant. The piece by Margaret Talbot examines differing attitudes among evangelicals and others about sex education and related issues. The article also quotes from a Christian author who questions the prominent use of fear and shaming in abstinence-only programs. Author Lauren Winner writes in her 2005 book, Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity:

“Rather than spending our unmarried years stewarding and disciplining our desires, we have become ashamed of them. We persuade ourselves that the desires themselves are horrible. This can have real consequences if we do get married.”

Texas law requires that the state’s public schools emphasize abstinence in sex education classes, although local school districts may choose also to provide information about responsible pregnancy and disease prevention. In 2004, however, the Texas State Board of Education adopted new high school health textbooks that fail to include any such information. That same year, Texas became the state with the nation’s highest teen birth rate. According to the current schedule, those abstinence-only-until-marriage health textbooks will be in Texas classrooms until at least the 2017-18 school year.… Read More

Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar’s online essay last weekend accusing (now) President-elect Barack Obama of sympathizing with terrorists apparently wasn’t her first trip down the extremism highway. Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Linda Campbell today noted that another online essay by the Richmond Republican in September was even more extreme.

In her earlier essay, Dunbar accused Obama of, among other things, promoting Marxism.

The liberal media knows about Obama’s communistic world view. In support of its endorsement the New York Times stated about Obama that “He has drawn in legions of new voters with powerful messages of hope and possibility and calls for shared sacrifice and social responsibility….” Does this language not disturb us as Americans? If it doesn’t it is simply because we don’t understand the role of civil government from a Biblical World View as our Founders did. “Shared sacrifice and social responsibility” smack of Marxist Communism and redistribution of wealth. This is a completely anti-American, anti-Constitutional view of the role of Federal Government, and Marxism is diametrically opposed to a Biblical World View. [Emphasis added.]

Good heavens. Now those of us who believe in “shared

We have seen no break in the pre- and post-election rhetoric from the religious right that links an incoming Barack Obama presidential administration with persecution of people of faith. Yesterday, for example, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council had this to say: 

“We are going to see, I think, unprecedented attacks against our faith through measures like the hate crimes [legislation] to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. We’re going to see attacks on innocent human life through the Freedom of Choice Act, trying to erase all the gains that have been made in the pro-life movement. And I think even our freedoms are going to come under attack.”

Perkins’ comment is outrageous on many levels, but especially two. First, Perkins assumes that all people of faith agree with his political views. So if someone doesn’t vote the way he does, that person can’t be a good Christian (or Jew or other person of faith). That arrogance reflects the religious right’s strategy of using faith as a weapon to divide people to advance a political agenda. Second, Perkins’ assertion that the election of Obama somehow represents a threat to fundamental freedoms in America is represhensible. That kind of baseless fear-mongering clearly… Read More