When it comes to public school textbooks, what happens in Texas clearly doesn’t stay in Texas. Last September the Texas State Board of Education passed a resolution attacking Islam and falsely claiming that social studies textbooks are anti-Christian and pro-Muslim. Now right-wing groups are threatening education officials in Florida while making essentially the same absurd claims in that state.
The Gainesville Sun reports education officials in that state have been receiving e-mails insisting that students’ history textbooks are anti-Christian and pro-Muslim. The campaign is being fueled by a Florida group called Patriots United.
The e-mails appear to be a form letter created by Patriots United and include out-of-context textbook excerpts the group claims are examples of an anti-Christian/pro-Muslim bias. From one e-mail:
“Handouts with each false excerpt should be given to every student. The teacher should provide an accurate explanation.”
The Gainesville paper explains that the e-mails include a threat that the anti-Muslim groups “reserve the right to remove those elected officials of the School Board in Districts who choose not to honor their requests.”
And just think: the Texas State Board of Education has been leading the way down this hateful, know-nothing path.
This hysteria is a well funded and professionaly managed propaganda campaign. It is not to be lightly dismissed as just nuts or abnormal. How serious it is can be observed by the present bill before the Tennnessee legislature to criminalize advocacy or support of Islam.
A quote from a local source puts it in a proper light :
“We have to be ruthless within the law here (which means making exceptional new laws), like being ready and willing to torch every mosque in the country and rounding up the Believers (and every blasted collaborator who stands with the Believers) and sending them to anywhere else but here. “
Florida has its own Fark tag. ‘Nuff said.