Target: Nellie Tayloe Sanders, OK Secretary of Education
Goal: Do not support requirement for public schools to incorporate Biblical teachings.
Oklahoma and Louisiana have become the latest states to hypocritically refute their own claims about educational freedom. Both states recently required public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, while Oklahoma’s top education chief went a step further by mandating that every public school class (from grades 5-12) be taught both the Ten Commandments and the Bible. In addition, every classroom must contain a Bible.
Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction justified this move by claiming the Bible is a “necessary historical document.” He was strangely silent on the historical importance of sacred texts from other religions, however. Nor did he have much to offer about this dictate’s violation of other American historical standards, namely freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.
Sign the petition below to demand this state’s leaders stop trying to turn education into indoctrination.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Secretary Sanders,
When enacting book bans and prohibitions on what can and cannot be taught, politicians (like the ones in this state) often proclaim they are fighting for parental freedoms and against educational indoctrination. Where are these lofty considerations in the newest attempt by politicians to insert their opinions into the realm of teachers and students? If cherry-picking the texts of one religion and forcing these precepts upon all students is not indoctrination, then what classifies, exactly? And what becomes of the rights of parents who do not want their children associated with these teachings?
Trying to cast this maneuver as an affirmation of “historical integrity” is also less than forthcoming. If you truly cared about or understood the historical foundations and ideals of this nation, then you should understand that the initial reasons ancestors came to this nation was to attain religious freedom and to flee religious persecution. This is precisely why the separation of church and state was such an integral concept to the founding fathers. You are taking a hatchet to the very history you claim to value.
Please rethink this wrong-headed mandate and end effort to weaponize education (and children’s futures) as a political wedge.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Max Fischer
