2011 Lege Wrap Up: No Mo’ Lowe

The frustration of Texas legislators with the State Board of Education‘s continuing efforts to drag public schools into the culture wars was so high that the confirmation of Gov. Rick Perry’s appointment of Gail Lowe, R-Lampasas, to another term as board chair this year never made it to the Senate floor. In fact, the Senate […]

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Rick Perry’s Record in the Culture Wars

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has turned his office into a command post in the far right’s purposely divisive culture wars over the past decade. The governor has shamelessly used faith and issues like school prayer, same-sex marriage and creationism to divide voters in the service of his political career. And the likelihood that he will […]

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2011 Lege Wrap Up: Anti-Bullying

Efforts to protect bullied schoolchildren in Texas have been largely unsuccessful in state legislative sessions past. But with the mounting number of high-profile tragedies across the country in the last couple of years — with some children driven to suicide by relentless bullying — those unsuccessful anti-bullying measures were bound to get a fresh look […]

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Religious Right Closes Ranks Behind Perry

New reports of closed-door meetings and conference calls indicate that religious-right kingmakers are coming together in support of a presidential bid by Texas Gov. Rick Perry. One of those closed-door confabs occurred two weeks ago, when Gov. Perry spoke before a virtual “who’s who” of religious-right leaders gathered in the North Texas city of Euless […]

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Happy Independence Day

Today as Americans celebrate our independence as a free nation, we believe it’s important to recall a critical part of the Constitution that is important in helping to preserve our freedoms 235 years later. The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging […]

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