Editors gone wild

Have you all heard about the big vote coming up in Texas? It's with the State Board of Education, and they're voting on some revisions in textbooks. Nothing major, really...just a few changes here and there, tidying up a few messy historical matters, editing a few troublesome details and oh yeah...totally rewriting history in order to further these fundamentalist yahoos' own religious and political agendas! Think I'm joking?

Among the recommendations facing a final vote: adding language saying the country's Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles and including positive references to the Moral Majority, the National Rifle Association and the GOP’s Contract with America.

Other amendments to the state's curriculum standards for kindergarten through 12th grade would minimize Thomas Jefferson's role in world and U.S. history because he advocated the separation of church and state; require that students learn about "the unintended consequences" of affirmative action; assert that "the right to keep and bear arms" is an important element of a democratic society; and rename the slave trade to the "Atlantic triangular trade.”

This is, of course, alongside the usual "teach the controversy" crap in which evolution is taught as a theory and intelligent design as a viable option.

All of these revisions are ridiculous—I find the new name for the slave trade especially appalling, as should anyone who has bothered to learn even the most fundamental things about the practice and the war that resulted from it—but you know which one really gets to me? The ousting of Thomas Jefferson from his rightful place as one of the major players in the framing of the government of our country.

Jefferson had his flaws (see slavery comments above), but there is no denying that he was a towering intellect and one of the greatest statesmen and philosophers the world has ever experienced. I truly believe that, and don't feel that it is an exaggeration at all. According to the Texas Board of Education, Jerry Falwell, Newt Gingrich, Charlton Heston, and Phyllis fuckin' Schlafly have more significance to our country than Thomas Jefferson.

Of all the memorials to various figures that I've seen in our nation's capitol, the Jefferson Memorial is my favorite. It is a lovely structure, and although grand, it is also beautiful in its simplicity. A large rotunda, with a 19 foot tall statue of Jefferson in the center, the surrounding walls inscribed with Jefferson's words. I remember walking the interior of the memorial, looking up as I read Jefferson's words, and I was struck by his intellect, his eloquence, and most importantly, his vision. He didn't just see how things should be in his moment in time; he saw the need to frame our documents so that we could change as we grew and matured as a country. This is my favorite inscription in the memorial:

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

That's right. Jefferson fully intended that the Constitution would change over time. The basic tenets concerning human rights must remain the same, but as we become more enlightened, we adapt by adding (or repealing...I love you, 21st Amendment! <sip>) amendments. (The "all men are created equal" part was finally expanded to include other than white male Christians, for example.) But I digress. I am dismayed that the Texas BOE would think that it is perfectly reasonable to exclude Jefferson from a place of importance in history textbooks. He's only the main architect of our republic and our Constitution, the same Constitution that they claim to love so dearly. I guess their love for the Constitution's primary author stops when he advocates the separation of church and state.

Why does the Texas Board of Education matter to me? Well, beyond the fact that we should all be concerned about what kids in Texas are being taught in our schools—some of these kids will be the national leaders of tomorrow, and I think we should expect that they will be taught, not indoctrinated—the Texas school system is so large that they are the second biggest buyer of textbooks after California, so many of the revisions they specify are used in textbooks around the country. Texas's revisionist history could very well make it to the textbooks of your children. Do you really want your kids learning more about the NRA and Phyllis Schlafly rather than Thomas Jefferson? If so, what is wrong with you?

How many times do we have to quote Moynihan: You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. Excluding Thomas Jefferson, one of our greatest thinkers and one of the world's most amazing intellectuals, from history books because he understood the importance of the separation of government from religion is not just crazy. It is dangerous.