Board of Ignorance

Putting someone who thinks public education is unconstitutional and that public schools should be abolished in charge of the Texas state board of education makes perfect sense... if you're a right-wing fundamentalist Christianist whack-job.

Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, who advocated more Christianity in the public square last year with the publication of her book, One Nation Under God, is among those that Gov. Rick Perry is considering to lead the State Board of Education, some of her colleagues say.

Critics are gasping and allies are cheering over speculation that Dunbar, a lawyer, could win a promotion to the leadership spot.

Ms. Dunbar is a graduate of Pat Robertson's Regent University law school, which is the same place that cranked out the legions of lawyers who took over the Bush administration's Department of Justice, including Monica Goodling, who gained her fifteen minutes of fame by firing attorneys who were lesbians, or worse, voted for Democrats.

In a book published last year, Dunbar argued the country’s founding fathers created “an emphatically Christian government” and that government should be guided by a “biblical litmus test.” She endorses a belief system that requires “any person desiring to govern have a sincere knowledge and appreciation for the Word of God in order to rightly govern.”

Also in the book, she calls public education a “subtly deceptive tool of perversion.”

The establishment of public schools is unconstitutional and even “tyrannical,” she wrote, because it threatens the authority of families, granted by God through Scripture, to direct the instruction of their children.

Perry’s appointment of Dunbar would send a statement “that the governor shares her shocking hostility toward public education,” said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, an organization that monitors the State Board of Education.

“Just as bad, he would be siding with a faction of self-righteous politicians on the board who have made it crystal clear that they believe the only real Christians are the ones who agree with them,” Miller said. “If the governor really decides that selling out our kids like this is a good re-election strategy, then this state has an even bigger problem than we thought.”

This is like making Colonel Sanders the president of the ASPCA.

Lab Kat laments, "I wish Florida would do something impossibly stupid soon so the nation would turn its attention from my wingnut-choked state." Sorry, LK, she's all yours. (PS: Thanks for the inspired title of this post.)

HT to C&L.

Cross-posted.