Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.
Texas State Board of Education member Thomas Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, on a science textbook adoption process that he described as “hijacked” for political purposes.
To ask me — a business degree major from Texas Tech University — to distinguish whether the Earth cooled 4 billion years ago or 4.2 billion years ago for purposes of approving a textbook at 10:15 on a Thursday night is laughable. To plop this at the 11th hour and say a book that is being used, as I understand it, in over half of the classrooms in the United States is now on the verge of 15 laypeople deciding finite and specific and specialized scientific information is hardly the best way to review a book for 5 million kids.
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The latest stunt by the UT-Austin chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas.
There will be several people walking around the UT campus with the label “illegal immigrant” on their clothing. Any UT student who catches one of these “illegal immigrants” and brings them back to our table will receive a $25 gift card.
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Family Research Council Executive Vice President Jerry Boykin, claiming that Jesus has been “feminized.”
You think his biceps weren’t big bulging biceps, big ole veins popping out of his arms, thin waist, strong shoulders from lifting? He smelled bad! Why? Because he sweated, he worked. You think I’m sacrilegious because I said Jesus smelled bad? No, he was a man! He was a man’s man.
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Comedian Sarah Silverman, described the recent assaults on reproductive rights.
I think vaginas really, really scare people, honestly.
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Ron Wetherington, an evolutionary anthropologist at Southern Methodist University, and Scott Egan, the Huxley Faculty Fellow in Ecology and Evolution at Rice University.
Nevertheless, we recognize that some religious beliefs reject evolution entirely, and we must respect the right of parents and congregations to teach their religiously based beliefs to their children. But the mission of public school science classrooms is to teach sound science. So we call on members of the State Board of Education not to pressure publishers into watering down or distorting instruction on evolution in their new textbooks. Instead, adopt these proposed textbooks and ensure that Texas students get a 21st-century education in their 21st-century classrooms.
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David Barton, explaining what it means if you go to Starbucks.
It’d be like an act of treason if this were a military term, but to do that spiritually, you can’t go join the enemies of God and expect God to bless you on all the values and all the things he said was right and wrong.
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Houston Mayor Annise Parker, announcing a move to extend health and life insurance benefits to same-sex legal spouses of city employees.
Based on the right to equal protection under the law, it is unconstitutional for the city to continue to deny benefits to the same-sex spouses of our employees who are legally married. This change is not only the legal thing to do, it is the right, just and fair thing to do.
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Texas Gov. Rick Perry, reaction to a suggestion that the Republican Party change the way it conducts presidential debates — perhaps because those changes would create fewer opportunities for candidates to make gaffes.
Hell, yeah
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Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, after signing legislation making his state the 16th to recognize same-sex marriage.
It’s official. #MarriageEquality is the law of the land in Illinois!
— Governor Pat Quinn (@GovernorQuinn) November 20, 2013
