Meanwhile, in Texas…

While Alabamans argue over banning books authored by gays or featuring gay characters, the school board in Odessa, Texas (the town featured in the book and film Friday Night Lights, the town that values football over book-learnin’) has voted unanimously to add a Bible class to its high school curriculum.

Barring any hurdles, the class should be added to the curriculum in fall 2006 and taught as a history or literature course. The school board still must develop a curriculum, which board member Floy Hinson said should be open for public review.

The board had heard a presentation in March from Mike Johnson, a representative of the Greensboro, N.C.-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, who said that coursework designed by that organization is not about proselytizing or preaching.

Of course, a look at their website reveals some interesting assertions, the first being, “The program is concerned with education rather than indoctrination of students,” which is immediately followed by, “The central approach of the class is simply to study the Bible as a foundation document of society, and that approach is altogether appropriate in a comprehensive program of secular education. The world is watching to see if we will be motivated to impact our culture, to deal with the moral crises in our society, and reclaim our families and children. Please help us to restore our religious and civil liberties in this nation.” (Emphasis mine.)

Okay. So if it’s not meant to indoctrinate students into a particular belief system, then why on earth does bringing Bible classes to high schools have anything to do with moral crises, not to mention the nebulous concept of “reclaiming children”? I think their goal is perhaps better stated as being “concerned with the covert indoctrination of students, rather than anything too obvious that will immediately get our asses taken to court by the ACLU.”

Whatever.

Oh, and by the way, my favorite rationale for this decision?

"How can students understand Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last Supper' … if they don't understand the reference from which they came?" Johnson said.

Uh, you know, Mike—I’m not so sure it’s a good idea for students to be studying that faggot anyway. You have a thing or two to learn from Alabama, it seems.