Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.
Gene Shelburne, a Church of Christ minister and teacher at Amarillo High School, discussing a reference to “Oriental races” in a chart he uses in class. The chart was revealed in a TFN report on what is being taught in some public school courses on the Bible in Texas.
Why, the valedictorian of our school is Oriental.
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Televangelist Pat Robertson, on Islam.
I hardly think to call it a religion, it’s more of — well, it’s an economic and political system with a religious veneer.
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Diana Medley, a special-ed teacher and parent in Sullivan, Indiana, speaking in support of a separate prom for LGBT students.
I believe that it was life circumstances and they chose to be that way; God created everyone equal. Homosexual students come to me with their problems, and I don’t agree with them, but I care about them. It’s the same thing with my special needs kids, I think God puts everyone in our lives for a reason. ‘So the same goes for gays? Do you think they have a purpose in life?’ No I honestly don’t. Sorry, but I don’t. I don’t understand it. A gay person isn’t going to come up and make some change unless it’s to realize that it was a choice and they’re choosing God.
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Rep. Rick Brattin, a Republican state representative in Missouri, on the bill he introduced that would require that intelligent design and “destiny” get the same educational treatment and textbook space in Missouri schools as the theory of evolution.
I’m a science enthusiast . . . I’m a huge science buff.
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Texas state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, trying to nail down State Board of Education Chair Barbara Cargill’s position on science at her Senate confirmation hearing Monday
You said you wanted science books to teach another side to evolution. Evolution is, in fact, established science. Are you now advocating another side to evolution?
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A new notice posted on the Texas Education Agency website, in an effort to avoid a repeat of last year, when several charter school proposals were found to have sections with identical or nearly identical wording.
An application must accurately describe an education program that is unique to the applicant. An application that plagiarizes or copies other application(s) will be presumed to not meet this standard.
