Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
There has been some confusion in Texas over whether the law passed by the legislature made it mandatory for school districts to offer a Bible course if enough students requested it or whether they could choose whether to offer one. The AG of Texas has now issued an order saying it is mandatory:
The decision is a result of work by the state legislature as well as an opinion from Greg Abbott, the state's attorney general, in a letter to Education Commissioner Robert Scott. House Bill 1287 was approved by state lawmakers in the spring of 2008, and it was signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry. It states all school districts must offer the course as an elective at the high school level by the 2009-2010 school year.Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, the author of the plan, said if 15 or more students express interest in the course, districts must provide it.
There are going to be so many lawsuits out of this.
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Just replace "Bible" with "Qur'an." And watch the wingnuts go ballistic.
Posted by: Ray C. | September 2, 2008 9:59 AM
This is only mildly disturbing.
Ray C., I wish there were some Muslims in Texas so we could watch that happen.
Posted by: JStein | September 2, 2008 10:03 AM
I can see parents screaming at the superintendent of the school district when the kids are told about the three (perhaps four) different editors of the Pentateuch, and the two different creations stories and the two different flood stories that were concatenated.
Oh, wait: is the intention of the course to present the fundamentalist mythology of what the Bible is and what it says?
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 2, 2008 10:08 AM
I misread you for a moment there and thought that they were making Bible courses mandatory for all students...and I thought your response was an understatement. However, I don't see what's wrong with the ruling itself. The lawsuits will come out of bad application of the program (which WILL happen), and that bad application is most likely to occur in those districts that were chomping at the bit to teach the class, not the ones that are being forced to do so.
Posted by: Shygetz | September 2, 2008 10:20 AM
The first teacher of that course that openly disbelieves the bible will be lynched.
How can conservatives be against abortion and be in favor of Texas?
Posted by: Rob Jase | September 2, 2008 10:27 AM
Shygetz,
The issue is this, the law requires that if just 15 students are interested in the class, the district must offer it. That amounts to making the class mandatory to all school districts. If you're talking about a school with 1-2k students, it is almost guaranteed that you will have that many interested. If you're talking about a smaller school, 600 to 700 say, you are generally talking about more conservative areas, so you're almost guaranteed to have enough interest. So, while it is "officially" an elective, I would argue that upwards of 90 to perhaps 95% of the school districts in the state will be required to have it.
Now what makes this bad is that normally, for a non Advanced Placement elective to be added, you have to have a minimum of 20-25 students interested and the money to add the course. This requirement not only reduces the number of students necessary for the course to proceed, it also requires that the district somehow come up with the money to teach the course. That likely means, in today's economy, that another elective is going to be eliminated in order to provide funding for the course.
Posted by: dogmeatib | September 2, 2008 10:31 AM
Dogmeat, so they'll cut bio AP out of the curriculum. See that wasn't hard...
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | September 2, 2008 10:34 AM
Dogmeat, any bets that some school in TX decides to make (Biology, Physics, Chemistry) an elective course? That way it can eliminate Science in favor of Bible Studies...
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | September 2, 2008 10:36 AM
JStien: There are Muslims all over Texas. I live in B/CS; ground zero for conservative nut-whackerry, and there's at least two mosques just in the downtown area. Hell, we've even got a Buddhist temple, iirc.
Posted by: Julian | September 2, 2008 10:38 AM
What's really stupid about this is that, excepting the major metropolitan zones, most Texas schools only offer the bare-minimum of electives; Art, Band, Orchestra, Choir, Theater, Dance, CS, and Debate. Even in a town with almost 200,000 people, like mine, those are the only options offered at the high-school level. So what are schools going to do; nix art for bible study? Considering that the people who take art are mostly the delinquents who think being in band or debate is "gay" and the small subset every district has of genuinely free-thinking artistic types, I can tell you right now no one is going to be pleased with that.
Posted by: Julian | September 2, 2008 10:46 AM
I also live in TX and am interested to see how school districts deal with this. My guess is that only teachers who express an interest in teaching it will be asked to do so. Further, I would guess you get two types of teachers interested:
1) those who would like to proselytize, opening their district to lawsuits (though this likely won't happen in many places as the students taking the class may eat it up); and
2) those with a true interest in the history of the Bible, one of whom may actually assign a book like "Misquoting Jesus." These teachers will likely be run out of town or generate protest.
I would have loved a class like #2 when I was in high school; sadly we only had a class like #1.
Posted by: Eric | September 2, 2008 11:06 AM
The article mentions the NCBCPS curriculum, which has already been thrown out of one Texas county as unconstitutional after a lawsuit (Moreno v. Ector County School Board).
This probably means we'll see a rematch in another county pretty soon.
Posted by: Jim Lippard | September 2, 2008 11:10 AM
i9t is tme to make texas a seperate country and shut the f---------ing boarders to it
Posted by: Ex Partiate | September 2, 2008 11:11 AM
Two questions. As a given I assume this only applies to bible courses needing 15 students to ask for it? I'm assuming so as the motive for this is pretty obvious...and as dull and doomed to failure as their last 15 or so attempts.
and of course, what will have to be dropped to make room for the new elective?
Posted by: Richard Eis | September 2, 2008 11:17 AM
I would be so the worst teacher for this course (from the standpoint of the fundies of course). My curriculum would so involved watching the Life of Brian.
This is just all over a bad idea, the state is basically shoving the schools in the path of lawsuits. Of course it'll be the schools who end up footing the bill for all the legal fees.
Posted by: Noadi | September 2, 2008 12:10 PM
Erm, not that I doubt the wonderful journalistic chops of a site like WND, but I don't think they understand the ruling they refer to. The Texas Freedom Network, for instance, put out a statement the same day as the ruling:
And from the ruling itself at the Attorney General's site:
The post here refers to confusion over the law, but I hadn't seen any further developments regarding the ruling.
Posted by: David | September 2, 2008 12:14 PM
I've got to agree with Shygetz here. It doesn't make any difference if it's mandatory for the school to offer it. It matters if it's mandatory for students to take it (and whether the content itself is unconstitutional, of course).
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | September 2, 2008 12:17 PM
Posted by: Taz | September 2, 2008 1:35 PM
I think most Texans would probably be just fine with that.
Posted by: Gretchen | September 2, 2008 2:50 PM
A wingnut quoted in the aforelinked article says,
Yep. And a hefty fraction of them are subversive, heterodox or downright nasty, once you know what old Will was talking about. (You think Hamlet was mad when he called Polonius "Jephthah"?) I wonder how many Shakespeare plays Jonathan Saenz has actually read?
Posted by: Blake Stacey | September 2, 2008 3:42 PM
I don't think you can get too much mileage out of that angle. Speaking as a fairly hardline atheist and holder of an MA in Eng Lit, I'd absolutely agree that you can't get a full appreciation of the Western canon without at least a cursory knowledge of major Biblical books and indeed exegesis (Jerome, Aquinas, Augustine at a minimum). The (pedagogical as much as constitutional) question is how that material is presented.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | September 2, 2008 4:21 PM
I think we're talking at cross purposes. I'm just delighting in the spectacle of a frothing fundamentalist justifying his indoctrination programme by regurgitating a talking point. . . about how many times a famous bisexual man quoted the Bible.
Et cetera.
A secondary point is that, like any other course of Bible study which is actually respectable on scholarly grounds, a curriculum of Biblical allusions in Shakespeare would be a breeding ground for infidels.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | September 2, 2008 5:28 PM
Obviously this isn't nearly as alarming as it would be to make such a course mandatory for students, but it is still irksome to see them lower the bar especially for this one course.
No, the real trouble with this is that it forces the local school boards into a very difficult position. They have already handed the local boards a suitcase bomb by issuing a curriculum mandate in a highly politically charged field with no attendant guidelines. This latest move handcuffs that bomb to the boards' collective wrists. They must come up with a Bible course, and responsibility for its content falls entirely on their heads.
They know that if the course isn't objective and scholarly, they will immediately be sued and lose. If it is, a large block of their constituency will be outraged. Given that it isn't their personal money that will be at risk in any lawsuit, how many board members do you think will be willing to stand on principle and tell the proselytizers where to go?
Posted by: DaveL | September 2, 2008 5:29 PM
Will these courses cover some of the contradictions, absurdities, cruelties, and dirty parts in the bible? I'd enjoy a course like that.
Posted by: dave | September 2, 2008 6:13 PM
>There are going to be so many lawsuits out of this.
What makes you so sure? I'd be fearing for my life if I was going to sue over this sort of activity in Texas! Fear for one's life is a powerful deterrent.
Posted by: allison | September 2, 2008 8:26 PM
I think it would be a great idea to teach the bible--as fiction.
Posted by: democommie | September 2, 2008 9:11 PM
"There are going to be so many lawsuits out of this."
Yes indeed. The ineptitude makes me wonder why the legislators and AG are doing this.
My not-so-crackpot theory is that they want be sued. They've created a kickback scheme. The politicians provide lots of work for lawyers and the lawyers in turn donate some of the legal fees they earn to the politician's campaign funds.
Posted by: Joseph O'Sullivan | September 3, 2008 10:08 AM
"A secondary point is that, like any other course of Bible study which is actually respectable on scholarly grounds, a curriculum of Biblical allusions in Shakespeare would be a breeding ground for infidels."
Oh, absolutely. I'm all in favour of a rigorous comparative religion curriculum, for cynical reasons as well as solid educational ones
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | September 3, 2008 12:44 PM
I think David's right -- WND has hoaxed itself.
The State Board refused to offer guidelines; the AG's decision suggests that courses like AP world history, AP U.S. history, and English III and IV courses (which generally include some scripture as literature) are adequate to meet the requirements of the new bill, thin as they are.
I blogged about it here:
"Texas AG rules, Bible classes not required"
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/texas-ag-rules-bible-classes-not-required/
Posted by: Ed Darrell | September 4, 2008 6:01 PM
The Compromise of 2009:
The Religious Right can impose mandatory Bible Studies in public schools, only if they allow mandatory Charles Darwin in church!
Posted by: DKN | August 18, 2009 4:29 PM