From Kosu:
State Superintendent Ryan Walters sent superintendents an email Thursday afternoon mandating districts show students a video of him announcing the new Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism and inviting students into a prayer for President-elect Donald Trump, among other topics.
This from nearly-Trump’s America is one of those instances that is so ridiculous that if it was fiction you’d think it a foolish exaggeration. Instead it’s just weird and scary.
I mean, the ‘Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism’. Come on. Apart from anything else surely that should be either no offices or two offices. Just call it “Office of I HEART TRUMP PLS GIV ME JOB” and be done with it.
The accompanying speech is of course full of violent rhetoric about the “radical left” and “woke” and all the usual buzzwords these ridiculous folk like to use.
Here it is, for those who like to punish themselves.
So strange that he forgot to pray for their actual current president, Biden? Oh, and neglected to defend the religious liberty of any religion that isn’t whatever subsection of Christianity he presumably follows - no doubt the one that adds “Trump” to bullet-point two of the Ten Commandment’s list of acceptable gods to worship.
On which note, this isn’t this guy’s first failure on this front. Previously he’s sent a memo to mandate that “the Bible”, including the all-important 10 commandments, must be taught to everyone in grades 5-12.
Americans United for Separation of Church and States have it right. There is nothing about “religious freedom” to be seen here. Rather:
This is textbook Christian Nationalism: Walters is abusing the power of his public office to impose his religious beliefs on everyone else’s children.
Another weirdo lawmaker from that area of the country was previously trying to get a law in place to make it required to display a poster of the 10 (Christian) Commandments “at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall” in every school. That’ll stop those pesky kids from inappropriately committing adultery I guess.