The Responders

The last few weeks have been full of news as we saw the extremism turned up to 11 by the supporters of Gov. Rick Perry’s and the American Family Association’s planned prayer and fasting rally Aug. 6 in Houston.

So to give everyone a better picture of the wide range of extremism that is set to meet under the Reliant Stadium roof, and with only one week to go, here’s a round up of what we thus far know about some of the people endorsing and organizing the purportedly apolitical event, The Response.

We’ll update this info and repost if more names are added to the list of organizers or endorses of Gov. Perry’s event.

The Week in Quotes (July 24 – 30)

Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.

7,500 and Counting: Sign the Open Letter

Our open letter calling on Texas Gov. Rick Perry to stop using faith as a political weapon to divide Americans now has more than 7,500 signatures. One news report indicates just 8,000 people have registered to attend the Christians-only event Gov. Perry has asked a far-right hate group, the American Family Association, to organize for him next weekend in Houston.

We’re sending our letter to Gov. Perry next week. So click here to sign on if you haven’t already.

Appalling Arrogance

Need any more evidence that Gov. Rick Perry’s August 6 prayer event in Houston really isn’t intended to unite Americans in support of our nation? Dave Welch of the far-right Texas Pastor Council sent out a militant email on Monday insisting that the event be for Christians only. Welch dishonestly characterizes the alternative as a “polytheistic approach and … interfaith event that requires Christians to squelch the mention of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

If that isn’t incendiary enough, Welch also defends the governor’s decision to ask a hate group, the American Family Association, to organize the event.

And if you don’t agree with Welch? Well, then this is what he thinks of you:

“The bottom line is that the only winners if Christians don’t pack out Reliant Stadium on August 6 will be enemies of Christ; those who espouse the liberal and unconstitutional view of separation of God and government and their allies.”

The real bottom line is that the religious right is not just willing to use faith as a divisive political weapon. Its leaders also have no problem attacking the faith of anyone who disagrees with them.

That Didn’t Take Long

Well, this isn’t a surprise. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is already walking back his comments last week that it would be “fine with me” if individual states decide to legalize gay marriage, like New York just did. It’s a states’ rights issue, he said at the time. But gay-hating pressure groups like the American Family Association and Family Research Council — whose political support Gov. Perry has been courting — started barking and growling about it. So now the governor says he was just misunderstood.

“Obviously, gay marriage is not fine with me,” Gov. Perry said today in a conversation with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. He and Perkins agreed that a constitutional ban on gay marriage would promote states’ rights by keeping states like Texas from being forced to recognize such marriages in other states:

“”The real fear is states like New York will change the definition of marriage for Texas,” he said. “That is the reason the Federal Marriage Amendment is being offered. It’s a small group of activists judges and really a small handful, if you will, of states and these liberal special interest groups that are intent on a redefinition, if you will, of marriage on the nation for all of us, which I adamantly oppose. Indeed, to not pass the Federal Marriage Amendment would impinge on Texas’ and other states’ right not to have marriage forced upon them by these activist judges and these special interest groups.”

But the Federal Marriage Amendment would prohibit any state from legalizing gay marriage. So to recap: Gov. Perry supports states’ rights, except when he doesn’t — and especially when anti-gay hate groups object.

Liberty Institute: ‘So-Called Scientists’

The State Board of Education late last week approved science instructional materials that will be in classrooms for the next decade, a decision lauded by TFN because the materials are free of creationist anti-science propaganda. But that’s not what we’re here for in this blog post. We’re here for the sideshow that is the far-right Liberty Institute, the Texas offspring of Focus on the Family.

Prior to Thursday’s SBOE hearing, TFN held a press conference in the lobby of the Texas Education Agency building for which plenty of media showed. Aaaaand Liberty Institute’s lawyer-lobbyist showed up.

We don’t really care that he was there. It was a public building and it was a public event. But it’s what he said after the press conference that caught our attention. Approached by a reporter to get his side’s viewpoint, he referred to our speakers as “so-called scientists.”

We would normally let such a cheap swipe go, but the people we invited to speak for us took time out of their busy lives — and in one case traveled across the country — for the sake of the education of the children of this state. So, yeah, we’re going to stand up for them a little.

Perry’s Ties: ‘Beyond the Fringe’

The excerpt (below) from a piece about Texas Gov. Rick Perry in yesterday’s Deseret News (Salt Lake City) appears dead-on to us. The writer quotes Shaun Casey, a professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary. Casey is also an expert on the role of religion in presidential politics. He comments about Gov. Perry’s courting of the religious right:

“Perry is a cheaper imitation of George Bush … and I think Perry has really studied Bush. But Bush’s brilliance with the religious right was that he did everything behind closed doors. There were no photo-ops, there were no press releases saying I met reverend so and so today. Bush did everything through intermediaries, and so there was no public trail of him reaching out to the religious right. The irony is that here comes along Perry, the dollar-general-store version of Bush, and here he is meeting with these people in public and you start looking at the line up of the people he’s cozying up to in public and all he is doing is setting himself up for trouble later on if by some miracle he actually wins the nomination … Some of these guys are really beyond the fringe — folks who George Bush would have never been caught dead with within a hundred miles of.”

TFN Insider has reported about some of the extremists helping Gov. Perry organize his Christians-only prayer event in Houston next month. See here and here. Then sign an open letter calling on Gov. Perry to end his association with a hate group and stop using faith as a political weapon to divide Americans.

Honeymoon Is Over

Late last week Gov. Perry sent some not-so-subtle signals to the American Family Association (AFA) — his partner in the upcoming prayer-rally “The Response” — that he’s not ready to commit just yet, intimating that he might not be willing to speak at the much-criticized event. Then in another surprise, the governor decided to go on the record over the weekend with his opinion that  the New York law allowing gay marriage is just fine with him, since he’s a big state’s rights supporter:

“Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex. And you know what? That’s New York, and that’s their business, and that’s fine with me. That is their call. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business.”

But isn’t that another slap in the face to his gay-hating buddies at the AFA? Yep.

“Gov. Perry himself is unapologetic in his support for natural marriage. We appreciate that he signed a symbolic measure to protect marriage in the Texas constitution. But perhaps he missed an opportunity here for him to stress the importance of natural marriage and the negative consequences for children when same-sex marriages are legitimized.”

That’s AFA’s director of issue analysis Bryan Fischer in an interview today with the Texas Independent. Fischer went on to reiterate AFA’s call for a federal marriage amendment that would effectively override any decision by individual states in this matter.

I wonder if both parties in this political marriage are starting to have second thoughts.

Rick Perry’s Non-Denial

“Oh, no you don’t. Get back here, Gov. Perry!” is what might have crossed the minds of the folks at the American Family Association and other extremists who have endorsed the governor’s prayer rally, The Response, when they read some of his comments in a Dallas Morning News story last week.

For the first time — and it took him a while — Gov. Perry has begun to inch away from the extremist views of the people he agreed to share a stage with at his August 6 event in Houston.

The Week in Quotes (July 17 – 23)

Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.

Anti-Science Forces Try to Spin Loss

We wondered how the evolution-deniers would spin this disastrous end to their two-year campaign to insert bogus criticisms of evolution into Texas science instructional materials. Predictably, we didn’t have to wait long. They are absurdly claiming they somehow won.

The primary mouthpiece for the state’s anti-evolution lobby — the Texas-affiliate of Focus on the Family that calls itself Liberty Institute — tweeted this knee-slapper:

“Victory! SBOE unanimously votes to require changes to errors in science materials, related to evolution, before adoption.”

Since these folks don’t have a good grasp of what just happened, let’s review some facts here.

Science Education Triumphs in Texas

Moments ago TFN released the following statement on the vote this morning at the State Board of Education:

TEXAS FREEDOM NETWORK STATEMENT
TFN PRESIDENT KATHY MILLER: TEXAS KIDS, SOUND SCIENCE EDUCATION TRIUMPH IN SBOE VOTE

New Instructional Materials Teach Sound Evolutionary Science

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

July 22, 2011

Today the State Board of Education voted to adopt the Texas education commissioner’s recommended list of science instructional materials. Special interest groups and activists off the state board failed in their efforts to force publishers to change their instructional materials to include arguments against evolutionary science. In addition, the board voted unanimously to reject the adoption of instructional materials from a New Mexico-based vendor that promoted “intelligent design”/creationism.

The following statement is from TFN President Kathy Miller:

“Today we saw Texas kids and sound science finally win a vote on the State Board of Education. Now our public schools can focus on teaching their students fact-based science that will prepare them for college and a 21st-century economy. And our schoolchildren won’t be held hostage to bad decisions made by a politicized board that adopted flawed science curriculum standards two years ago. Moreover, today we saw that the far right’s stranglehold over the state board is finally loosening after last year’s elections. That’s very good news for public education in Texas.”

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The Texas Freedom Network is a nonpartisan education and religious liberties watchdog. The grassroots organization of religious and community leaders support public education, religious freedom and individual liberties.

Live-Blogging the Final Science Materials Vote

We’re back in the hearing room for the final vote, which is beginning now.

9:24 – The board jumps right in to a discussion of the disputed Holt McDougal product. A TEA spokesperson clarifies that they could find NO documentation to substantiate that multiple review panel members signed-off on the alleged “error” list presented yesterday. It appears that a single member of this panel is responsible for these charges, and it does not reflect a consensus opinion of the panel.

9:27 – Important note: TFN has obtained a copy of letter addressed to the state board signed by five members of the official biology review panels. The letter challenges the alleged “errors” identified in the report presented to the board late yesterday, concluding:

“Holt McDougal’s supplement, as well as the publisher’s response to the reviewers, accurately describes the current state of the science, satisfies the TEKS, and matches the other supplements already approved by the board on Thursday.”

9:28 – Board member Michael Soto, D-San Antonio, moves to strike the disputed “error” list in the Holt McDougal product. Heated discussion ensues.

9:31 – Here is a summary of what is going on: the alleged “errors” identified in the Holt McDougal product appear to originate from a single member of the review panel, apparently David Shormann (a self-identified young earth creationist). TEA staff confirms that other members of that panel did NOT sign off on the alleged “errors.” That means the board yesterday voted to force Holt to make changes based on the objections of a single person. Dr. Soto’s motion would undo that vote and allow Holt McDougal to proceed with their proposed submission without making these disputed changes (which would insert junk science into the submission).

9:40 – Board members are reacting with alarm to this revelation. A number of board members make the point that to force these disputed changes might actually create errors in these materials. Precisely.

9:45 – David Bradley, R-Buna, has some nerve. He’s lecturing the board about how substantive changes shouldn’t be made on the final Friday of the meeting. Wow. We would remind Mr. Bradley that he personally participated in massive revisions to social studies standards (2010), science standards (2009) and English-Language Arts standards (2008).

9:50 – Soto speaks to his motion. He makes the reasonable point that the board should not be adjudicating technical matters biology, since they are not experts in this area. But when they find an undisputed mistake in the process like this, they must take corrective action. The board should not force changes on a publisher that do not represent a consensus opinion of the review committees.

9:56 – The board votes to take a 15 minute recess. Stay tuned.

10:19 – We’re back. David Bradley is reading a statement from Holt McDougal, saying they will respect the decisions of the board. No surprises there.

10:21 – Bob Craig, R-Lubbock, suggests that Dr. Soto withdraw his motion, and allow the board to approve the Holt McDougal submission contingent upon changes approved by the Education Commissioner. This would appear to be a compromise to allow the publisher to make reasonable, accurate changes — not the political changes suggested by Shormann. Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, speaks against. He wants the publisher to make the changes Shormann advocates. The board is discussing.

10:25 – Soto calls for a vote on his motion to strike all the disputed “errors” identified by Shormann. Mercer moves to amend  Soto’s motion by exempting the materials pertinent to TEKS 7A (animation “Similarities in Microbiology” on pages 4-5 of the disputed “error” report) — this is one of Shormann’s bogus errors. Mercer wants this particular change to be forced on Holt McDougal.

10:30 – Chairwoman Cargill announces that they are separating these into two separate motions. Soto decides to withdraw his motion, so they can take up Craig’s compromise.

10:32 – Craig immediately moves to accept the Holt McDougal submission contingent upon rewording the disputed sections to the satisfaction of the Education Commissioner. Bradley speaks against.

10:33 – Gail Lowe, R-Lampasas, speaks in favor. Commissioner Scott clarifies that he will look at these disputed issues very carefully and ensure the changes are accurate and conform to the curriculum standards. We understand that the commissioner intends to seek out the advice from legitimate science scholars and teachers in vetting these changes. Terri Leo, R-Spring, doesn’t like this because it prevents the board from monkeying around with the product to insert bogus creationist arguments. Mercer has the same objection.

10:41 – Call for a record vote. Craig’s amendment passes unanimously. The far-right bloc complained, but they didn’t have the courage of their convictions.

10:44 — Craig moves on a procedural vote to reject the “intelligent design” submission by International Databases. His motion is approved unanimously. These two votes represent a definitive victory for science and the students of Texas — and a complete defeat of the far-right’s two-year campaign to dumb-down instruction on evolution in Texas schools. We’ll have a press statement shortly.

Creationists Target Publisher in Texas Adoption

Update: TFN has obtained a copy of letter addressed to the state board signed by five members of the official biology review panels. The letter challenges the alleged “errors” identified in the report presented to the board late yesterday, concluding:

“Holt McDougal’s supplement, as well as the publisher’s response to the reviewers, accurately describes the current state of the science, satisfies the TEKS, and matches the other supplements already approved by the board on Thursday.”

The Texas State Board of Education’s public hearing and debate over proposed new science instructional materials today went well — until a big bump at the end. Most of the instructional materials the education commissioner has recommended for adoption received preliminary approval from the state board. The board has scheduled a final vote tomorrow.

But toward the end of the debate this afternoon, Texas Education Agency staff revealed that a review team had identified eight objections to content in the Biology instructional materials submitted for approval by publisher Holt McDougal. Board members were told that Holt McDougal is arguing that the objections are based on bad science.

Indeed, the objections appear to be largely the work of a young-earth creationist — David Shormann — on the team that reviewed the company’s materials. Here is a review Shormann wrote about the Holt McDougal materials and shared with his review team. We obtained this document last week through a Public Information Act request to TEA.

You can see that many of Shormann’s objections in his review have been repeated — almost word for word — in this document TEA distributed to state board members this afternoon. The TEA document lists the eight objections and includes Holt’s rationale for not making the changes Shormann demands. Because of the very abbreviated and opaque review process the state board established for this science adoption, it appears that few people outside TEA and Holt McDougal even knew about these objections. Indeed, the ability of the public to get information about the proposed instructional materials and reviews has been very limited.

In any case, the state board’s creationist members obviously smell blood. In fact, they successfully opposed even permitting a representative from Holt McDougal to address the board and explain why the demanded changes represent bad science. So the board will have to sort through this issue tomorrow.

Live-Blogging the SBOE Science Debate I

4:30 – With the end of the public hearing on proposed new science instructional materials, the State Board of Education is now starting debate over whether to adopt the materials recommended by the Texas education commissioner. In past adoptions, the state board has taken a preliminary vote at the end of this initial debate. The final, formal vote on which materials to put on the official adoption list is scheduled for Friday.

We’re also live-tweeting at #sboe. For anyone who wants to watch the proceedings, the meeting is being live-streamed here. For a primer on what’s at stake today and tomorrow, you can view an archive of TFN Insider posts on the science debate by clicking here.

4:37 – The board will consider the proposed instructional materials by grade level, beginning with Grade 5. Under consideration are science materials for Grades 5-8 and materials for Biology, Physics, Chemistry, and Integrated Physics and Chemistry at the high school level.

4:41 – The board is considering a motion that would require publishers to make corrections to errors identified by the Texas Education Agency’s instructional review teams in June. This motion would apply to all materials, for Grades 5-8 and high school. This is not particularly alarming. If the review teams identified real errors, they should be corrected.

4:47 – The board is now voting on approval of the commissioner’s recommendations by grade level, subject to publishers making required changes to errors.

4:48 – Chairwoman Barbara Cargill moves Biology to the end of the list. That’s when we’ll find out if board members have concerns about proposed materials from certain publishers.

5:03 – So far the board has given preliminary approval to the commissioner’s list for Grades 5-8 (subject to publishers correcting any errors review teams identified). (Final approval is required tomorrow.)

5:08 – We should note that the “errors” that publishers must correct include grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes. It’s not unusual for publishers to correct numerous such errors after initial submission for adoption. Alarm bells will go off if some state board members start identifying “errors” that are really personal or political objections to content.

5:21 – Board members are raising concerns that they might be adopting instructional materials without knowing how publishers will make corrections to identified errors. Of course, TFN has noted in the past that this adoption process is greatly abbreviated (compared to past adoptions of instructional materials), leaving little time for board members — not to mention concerns folks outside the board — to review the materials and publishers’ corrections to errors. Board members are only recognizing this flaw in their process now?

5:33 – Board member Gail Lowe is proposing a mechanism for publishers to report their error corrections to the Texas Education Agency and the State Board of Education.

5:37 – Lowe’s suggestion approved. Chemistry products cleared for now. On to Physics materials.

5:38 – Materials for Physics and then Integrated Physics and Chemistry (IPC) get preliminary approval. On to Biology.

5:50 – And now we run into precisely the kind of problem we thought might occur because of the lack of transparency in this adoption process. Apparently, one of the publishers — Holt McDougal — has refused to change what a review panel identified as “errors.” Indeed, the publisher is insisting that its materials are based on sound science. This is the first time TFN and state board members themselves have even seen this list of “errors.” It’s unclear whether the “errors” are based on the objections of one or more review panel members. But this is key: the review panel included David Shormann, a youth-earth creationist. The board is now deciding what to do.

5:56 – We’re still studying the objections to the Holt McDougal materials, but they appear to be designed to question certain processes linked to evolution.

6:00 – Board members are debating whether to allow a representative of the publisher to explain the reason for refusing to make the changes. Thomas Ratliff raises concerns that the review panel’s objections might be the product of just one panel member and that board members have no way to know at this point.

6:02 – One of the objections to the Holt material deals with a student lab activity on comparing hominid skulls. Excerpt: “The similarities in human skulls with other hominids may be convergent evolution, but it is erroneous to pretend that common ancestry is the cause.”

6:05 – The board refuses to allow Holt McDougal to address the board on the issue. We’re working to get a copy of the objections in PDF form that we can upload.

6:10 – The board has voted to give preliminary approval to the Holt McDougal materials subject to the publisher making the changes noted in the disputed objections. This just pushes the debate into tomorrow.

6:21 – Other publisher’s materials for Biology are also gaining preliminary approval. But the Holt materials are going to be an issue tomorrow.

6:33 – Motion made by Craig to reject International Databases submission. It passes unanimously.

6:34 – Board adjourns. Tomorrow will be a nail-biter. Stay tuned.