Dallas Morning News facilitates homophobe's Evangelical invasion of the classroom. Update.
The homophobic Evangelical Christians have been wanting to bring their homophobic religion into the classroom and into the schools. There agenda is fairly obvious to the intellgent observer.
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As always, what can be stored in the Internet Archive is saved there.
Dallas Morning News publishes justification for plan to put Bible lessons into the school curricula.
The article by Donna Bahorich, Sept. 12, 2024, is titled, “Defending Texas curriculat that integrate cultural and biblical literacy.” The subtitle is, “Better educational standards will help us raise better citizens.”
Notice, that these are represented as “biblical literacy” rather than Bible Lessons.
Bahorich states, “… It’s a uniquely Texan solution that could set a new standard for the nation.”
She is praising the passage of the House Bill 1605, which introduces, “Instrutional Materials Review and Approval (IMRA) process and the Texas Open Education Resources (OER) initiative.
The IMRA is to make the educational materials “reflect … the rich diversity of our state.”
She also explains:
Local control remains paramount, with districts retaining the autonomy to select materials that resonate with their community values. This ensures a vibrant tapestry of viewpoints across our diverse state.
This “vibrant tapestry” as we will see means locally Independent School Districts could make their schools into basically Christian schools.
Bahorich, though trying to obscure the intentions of this legislation, make it clear what the agenda is when she writes.
Others have expressed concerns about the inclusion of familiar biblical stories in language arts materials. However, these stories, such as Esther’s courage or the good Samaritan’s compassion, are presented as cultural literacy, providing context for understanding Western art and literature. The robust public review process ensures that this content remains educational rather than religious in nature.
They are stories from the Bible, they are inherently religious. Bahorich claims these Bible stories are because she thinks there is imbalance in instruction with too much English and Math and not enough history and science. No source is given with this.
The article tells us that she is the former chair of the Texas State Board of Education and a member of the Texas Historical Commission.
The Texas Freedom Network had this report, “Turning Texas Public Schools into Sunday Schools,” with a review of the proposed K-5 curriculum.
The report also details the historical inaccuracies of the material as well as these training material being religious instruction.
https://tfn.org/cms/assets/uploads/2024/08/OER-Report-2024.pdf
So who is Donna Bahorich?
For starters, when Texas Gov. Abbott appointed here as the Chair of the State Board of Education, she is “a member of the pastor’s council at Houston Vineyard Church,” and her education is a Masters in Counseling from Liberaty University.
She is big on home schooling as the following article explains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Bahorich
This is the webpage for the Vineyard of Houston Church.
https://www.houstonvineyard.org/
This webpage explains who they are.
The Houston Vineyard is a member church of Vineyard USA, a community of churches committed to the theology and practice of the Kingdom of God. Learn more about the values, beliefs, and distinctives of the Vineyard movement by clicking the button below.
The button below takes you to Vineyard USA website.
https://www.houstonvineyard.org/who-we-are/
It is a national network of churches that is homophobic and it against homosexuality entirely and systematically. They have a 90 page paper, not online now, but archived at the Internet Archive.
It took a long report to document there homophobic and how you had to dig in to dig up the records of their homophobia.
The Dallas Morning News fails to mention that she is or was a membrer of the Pastor’s Circle of Houston Vineyard Church, something that would be criticial to evaluate her claim that she was just advocating “biblical literarcy” instead of relgious instruction.
Knowing this you likely would see her agenda for the theocratic agenda it is and that she is a member of a homophobic religion.
Both the American Federation of Teachers and the Christian Post (Evangelicals) know what the real issue is.
From the Texas AFT, “Action Needed: SBO to Review TEA’s Bible-Infused New Curriculum.”
Christian Post, “Teachers union slams Texas plan to incorporate Bible references into school curriculum.”
The Dallas Morning News has an ongoing practice of these ommissions and some bordering on misrepresentation. The following directory has 23 reports, about Dallas Morning News articles, not including this one. The earliest entry is from April 2023. That is 23 articles in 18 months.
Further there has been a campaign by religious groups to push themselves into the schools as school chaplains.
The Dallas Morning News is a threat to the LGBT.
They may be a token article here or there about LGBT activities, but meantime they are allowing homophobic Evangelicals to push their agenda without them being identified as homophobes and thus it is unclear that their agenda might be part of a homophobic agenda.
