The wait is finally over. After months of promises and grandstanding, Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, with only hours remaining before the bill-filing deadline, finally fulfilled his pledge to file a school voucher bill. If you’ve been listening to Sen. Patrick since last August, you would think that this moment would be met with fanfare and […]
Religious Right Watch
The religious right strategically uses religion and religious language, combined with patriotic symbols, to push a political agenda that has little connection to the values of mainstream people of faith. It is, in short, a political rather than religious movement. The Texas Freedom Network has monitored the religious right in Texas since 1995.
Resources
- The Rise of the Religious Right in Texas (2006 Report)
- The Religious Right and the State Board of Education (2008 Report)
- The Religious Right and Sex Education
- The Bible and Public Schools
- How the Religious Right Hijacked the National Day of Prayer (2005 Report)
- The Texas Restoration Project
- David Barton Watch
Sen. Patrick Gives Texans an Odd Lesson on Civil Rights
Did you know that students attending private schools in Texas today face discrimination like African-American students did during the era of racial segregation? Sen. Dan Patrick, the Republican chairman of the Texas Senate Education Committee, seems to think so. Sen. Patrick was speaking at Tuesday’s Education Committee hearing on Senate Bill 573, a measure that […]
God, Guns and Greg Abbott
The image below comes from the political campaign of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. Where to begin? Perhaps with the fact that the Bible is, in fact, taught in public schools. Sometimes unconstitutionally, but it is. Here’s TFN’s report on such classes. Or maybe we should start by noting Tuesday’s Texas Senate Education Committee hearing, […]
Distortions and Bullying Tactics Take Center Stage at Texas Senate Hearing on Sex Education
Today we saw a big reason why sex education is so awful in Texas, a state with one of the highest teen birth rates in the nation. Polling shows that 84 percent of registered voters in Texas want high school sex education classes to teach about birth control along with the importance of abstinence. But […]
Texas SBOE Chair Praises 'Leading Historian' David Barton, Who Gets His History from Louis L'Amour
At her Texas Senate Nominations Committee hearing last month, State Board of Education Chairwoman Barbara Cargill made a number of commitments should her appointment to a second term be confirmed. (It was.) Among those was a commitment to beef up qualifications required for individuals appointed by SBOE members to serve as “expert” advisers during the […]
