From today’s TFN News Clips:
“I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely…. The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.”
— Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, speaking in an interview with Glenn Beck on Thursday.
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From today’s TFN News Clips:
“It’s a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach.”
— Alabama Republican state Sen. Shadrack McGill, offering a novel argument against raising teacher salaries. But McGill, who was speaking at a prayer breakfast, defended a 62 percent pay hike Alabama legislators approved for themselves in 2007.
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From today’s TFN News Clips:
“I think it’s unnatural. I think it’s wrong that people touch other people’s private parts outside of special covenantal relationships.”
— Texas state Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview, talking about airport security pat-downs by Transportation Security Administration agents.
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From today’s TFN News Clips:
“What you see is what you get, and he stands on the same foundation that I stand on. He acknowledges God in his life, and without God, where would we be? He’s not like some pastors who think they own their church. He acknowledges those around him. And his wife is a great asset. She’s submissive to him, as she should be.”
— Patty Whetsell, a Republican activist in South Carolina, talking about Rick Perry.
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From today’s TFN News Clips:
“I want the full portrait of evolution and the people who came up with the ideas to be presented. It’s a worldview and it’s godless. Atheism has been tried in various societies, and they’ve been pretty criminal domestically and internationally. The Soviet Union, Cuba, the Nazis, China today: they don’t respect human rights. As a general court we should be concerned with criminal ideas like this and how we are teaching it…. Columbine, remember that? They were believers in evolution. That’s evidence right there.”
— New Hampshire Republican state Rep. Jerry Bergevin, who has introduced one of two new anti-evolution bills in that state’s legislature.
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From today’s TFN News Clips:
“If you want to know why we can’t pass legislation in Texas, it’s because we have 37, no 36, Hispanics in the Legislature. All of the states that have passed legislation have a handful and I mean literally, some of them have NO Hispanic legislators, well, maybe 3 or 5 or something. So that’s, umm, part of our problem and we need to change those numbers. . . . So the problem is these Hispanic legislators . . . is that it’s too close to them and they, umm. . . simply cannot vote their conscience correctly.”
— Tea Party leader Rebecca Forest, complaining at a rally at the Texas Capitol about the difficulty in passing a bill barring so-called “sanctuary cities” (which don’t exist in Texas anyway). (Video available at the link.)
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From today’s TFN News Clips:
“Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept ambiguity and diversity and is therefore inherently intolerant. Such intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless and uses political power to destroy what it cannot convert.”
— Rev. Peter J. Gomes, a Harvard minister, theologian and author, in an essay published in the New York Times in 1992. He announced he was gay a generation ago and became one of America’s most prominent spiritual voices against intolerance. Rev. Gomes died Monday at 68.
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From today’s TFN News Clips:
“The latest rumor I hear, and I don’t know if this is true or not, is that he’s used about 25 different Social Security numbers … YouTubes are infallible.”
— Texas state Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, casting doubt on President Obama’s citizenship and citing an Internet source for his doubts.
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From today’s TFN News Clips:
“[I]f the Beshear administration is determined that Kentucky should cash in on its stereotypes — and wants to fight Indiana to snare the theme park — why stop with creationism? How about a Flat-Earth Museum? Or one devoted to the notion that the sun revolves around the Earth? Why not a museum to celebrate the history and pageantry of methamphetamines and Oxycontin? Surely a spot can be found for an Obesity Museum (with a snack bar). And while we’re at it, let’s redo the state’s slogan. Let’s try: Kentucky — Unbridled Laughingstock.”
— The Louisville Courier-Journal, editorializing against the Kentucky governor’s efforts to promote a creationism theme park in the state, possibly with tax dollars.
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From today’s TFN News Clips:
“[Y]ou need to know that for our opponents, nothing makes sense except in the light of evolution. The great story coming out of Texas is that their spell has been broken. We have ended the dogmatic teaching of evolution, and we have restored the founders’ idea of a Creator.”
— Outgoing Texas State Board of Education member Don McLeroy, R-College Station, offering his take on the state board’s work on public school curriculum standards over the past two years. McLeroy lost his bid for re-election this year.
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