At Board of Education, church-state fight grows
12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, May 15, 2010
AUSTIN – A leading social conservative on the State Board of Education will push for further doubt to be cast on separation of church and state when the board goes back to work on proposed curriculum standards for social studies next week.
Board member Don McLeroy, R-College Station, has distributed several changes he will propose before board members take a final vote on the standards. The curriculum will dictate what is taught in classrooms and must be included in textbooks for U.S. history, government and other social studies courses in Texas schools.
The GOP-dominated board shot down an earlier attempt by Democratsto have high school students study the reasons the Founding Fathers barred the government from promoting any religion.
McLeroy now wants to include a requirement that eighth-grade history students study the issue from a different perspective.
Under his proposal, students would "contrast the Founders' intent relative to the wording of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause, with the popular term 'Separation of church and state.' "
The language reflects the opposition of social and religious conservatives to the legal doctrine of separation of church and state, which has been upheld multiple times by the U.S. Supreme Court,