Texas GOP Platform: Don’t Teach Kids Critical Thinking Skills!

Remember when Texas State Board of Education member David Bradley criticized teachers and scholars who were crafting new language arts and reading curriculum standards for Texas schools back in 2008? Having students actually think about what they were reading didn’t seem like a good idea to Bradley: “I’m sorry. This critical thinking stuff is gobbledygook.” Well, […]

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Texas GOP Platform ‘Deplores Discrimination’ — Except Against Gay People

Read the Texas Freedom Network’s analysis of the 2012 Texas Republican Party platform here. The full platform itself is here. We thought these two passages were particularly revealing. Page 7: “Homosexuality — We affirm that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit. Homosexual […]

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2012 Texas GOP Platform: Turning Back the Clock

Since the religious right took control of the Texas Republican Party back in the early 1990s, writing the state GOP’s platform has been an exercise in promoting extremism every two years. This year wasn’t any different. A Texas Freedom Network analysis shows how the 2012 Texas Republican Party turns back the clock by seeking to […]

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How Extreme Will the Texas GOP Platform Be This Year?

Both the Democratic and Republican parties of Texas will meet in convention this week. Ever since the religious right’s takeover of the Texas Republican Party in the 1990s, the state GOP platform has been almost a manifesto for extremism. The 2010 platform, for example, calls separation of church and state a “myth”; insists on abstinence-only […]

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Who Is Really Trying to Intimidate the Judiciary?

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is upset about President Obama’s comments that a Supreme Court decision to overturn the health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, would represent “unprecedented, extraordinary” judicial activism. Senator McConnell said today that the president is trying to “intimidate” the Supreme Court: “With his words, he was no […]

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