Are your state's tax dollars funding the teaching of religious supremacism and bigotry?  What about Creationism?  The answer is undoubtedly yes, if you live in a state with a voucher or corporate tax credit program funding "school choice."
 
Religious schools across the nation are receiving public funds through voucher and corporate tax credit programs. Many hundreds, if not thousands, of these schools use Protestant fundamentalist textbooks that teach not only Creationism, but also a religious supremacist worldview, with a shocking spin on politics, history, and human rights.

This post from 2011 surfaces important information about President-Elect Trump's nominee for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. -- FC

Erik Prince, Brother of Betsy DeVos, Building Mercenary Army in UAE

The Prince and DeVos families are at the intersection of radical free market privatization and the Religious Right, and have made an enormous impact on the current political atmosphere.  Erik Prince played a significant role in privatizing military functions while his older sister Betsy is at the helm of a movement to privatize public schools. The billionaire brother/sister duo are also vice presidents of their parents' foundation which is one of the major funders of Focus on Family and Family Research Council and an array of missionary organizations and right-wing think tanks.

This post from 2-14 will be a helpful resource in the days ahead. -- FC

Mother Jones' January/February issue includes an article titled "Meet the New Kochs: The DeVos Clan's Plan to Defund the Left."  Author Andy Kroll details Dick DeVos' role in orchestrating the ambush that made Michigan a "right-to-work" (aka "right to work for less") state.  Of course, the DeVos family's exploits against labor unions and public education aren't new, and Talk2action contributors have been writing about them for years. This includes a series of articles on the DeVoses role promoting school vouchers and a series of articles by Russ Bellant, author of the 1996 book, The Religious Right in Michigan Politics. See the list and links after the fold, including a video clip from Dick DeVos' 2002 speech at the Heritage Foundation in which he described the need to change the face of the "school choice" movement.

This post about the long term strategy for privatizing the public schools takes on fresh importance in light of the nomination of Betsy DeVos to be the Secretary of Education. -- FC

Right-wing think tanks have determined that school vouchers are key to eradicating public education and Dick and Betsy DeVos lead the way in execution of the well-funded plan. The money is tracked in two extensive reports on Talk2action [1 and 2]. DeVos video excerpt below fold.

"We need to be cautious about talking too much about these activities," Dick DeVos warned in a December 2002 speech at the Heritage Foundation. DeVos was introduced by former Secretary of Education William Bennett and then proposed a stealth strategy for promoting school vouchers in state legislatures.  DeVos and his wife Betsy had already spent millions promoting voucher initiatives that were soundly rejected by voters.  Pro-privatization think tanks had concluded that vouchers were the most politically viable way to "dismantle" public schools; the DeVoses persevered.  Dick DeVos introduced his 2002 Heritage Foundation audience to a covert strategy to provide "rewards or consequences" to state legislators, learning from the activities of the Great Lake Education Project (GLEP) initiated by Betsy DeVos. Vouchers should be promoted by local "grass roots" entities and could not be "viewed as only a conservative idea."  DeVos added, "This has got to be the battle.  It will not be as visible."

The Betsy DeVos-led American Federation for Children (AFC) and its core funders have spent more than fifteen million dollars in Pennsylvania over the last five years. The majority of the funding was in support of a Democratic state senator, Anthony H. Williams, who is a candidate in the Democratic mayoral primary for mayor of Philadelphia to be held on Tuesday, May 19.  While banking on Williams, AFC has quietly filed and begun to fund a new Pennsylvania political action committee (PAC) in preparation for their ongoing onslaught in the state.  Initial funding for the PAC has come directly from the DeVos family, the national leaders behind school privatization as well as major funders of the GOP and Religious Right causes. Thus far the only recipient is Williams.

[Photograph: Anthony H. Williams (left), Jeb Bush, and Kevin Chavous attend AFC's First Annual New York Gala on October 30, 2014.]

St. Louis Police Officer Dan Page drew national attention when he shoved CNN's Don Lemon during a broadcast of the protests in Ferguson, and again, just a few days later, when a speech Page gave to the St. Charles/ St. Louis Oath Keepers emerged. That speech revealed his paranoid and conspiratorial worldview, but it wasn't a one-time event. Page has been making the rounds on rightwing radio and podcasts over the last several months, including an interview with Rick Wiles on TruNews, on the John Moore Radio Show, and on Caravan to Midnight with John B. Wells.  While it would be easy to dismiss these interviews as fringe, they represent a worldview that has been mainstreaming with the help of groups like the Oath Keepers, Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), Gun Owners of America (GOA), and the John Birch Society (JBS).

Following is a short video clip of one of the segments, the link to my recent PRA article on Dan Page, and the complete audio/video from the three interviews.

(The following is a reposting of my 2010 article on the National Day of Prayer.  Some of the links are no longer live, but the post continues to be relevant today.)

The "official" National Day of Prayer Task Force, which oversees thousands of National Day of Prayer events, does not represent all Americans.  It does not represent all Christians.  It doesn't even represent all evangelicals. Leadership of "National Day of Prayer Task Force" events is limited only to those who will sign a form stating that they adhere to the Lausanne Covenant, the belief statement of an international umbrella mission organization started by Billy Graham in 1974.  The Lausanne Movement refers to the ongoing structure of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) which works to streamline and organize worldwide proselytizing of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and "Nominal Christians" which they state are the "approximately one billion people classified as Christians who "still need to be evangelized" and are described as "found extensively among Protestants, Orthodox, and Roman Catholics." In other words, the National Day of Prayer Task Force is limited to leadership that support the goal of ultimately ending all other faiths and belief systems that fall outside of the Lausanne Covenant.

Michael Peroutka's introduction at the 2012 League of the South conference was given a hearty cheer by the audience. The loudest applause came when he was described as "honored" by his inclusion as a "hater" in the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch, along with his pastor, League of the South Chaplain David Whitney. (Video after jump.) Peroutka and Whitney are running for office in Anne Arundel County Maryland, one as a Republican and one as a Democrat, as revealed by Frederick Clarkson in articles at Political Research Associates and at Talk2action. Talk2action contributor Jonathan Hutson tweeted links to the articles and a reference to SPLC's mapping of 15 hate groups in Maryland, including the League of the South.  In response he received tweets, also directed to the SPLC, from a member of the Ohio Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).  One read "Kill the Jews" and another called for the SPLC to "return to their Israeli homes."

Frank Taaffe has repeatedly been given a platform on network and cable news shows in defense of George Zimmerman, Michael Dunn, and Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. This includes an appearance as recently as last week on HLN's Nancy Grace Show's coverage of the trial of Michael Dunn, the "loud music" shooting that resulted in the death of Jordan Davis.  When Taaffe's not playing the role of analyst on television, he doubles as co-host of a white supremacist broadcast with the name "Standing Our Ground." I posted an audio clip earlier today at Political Research Associates of Taaffe talking about who qualifies to be called "nigger."  I've also posted a slightly longer version of this raw exchange below in order to document the fact that major network and cable news programs have helped to provide a media platform to a white supremacist. In the discussion of the Stand Your Ground laws of Florida and other states, it is imperative that we acknowledge the role of the mainstreaming of racist ideology in media.

[Update: The "Standing Our Ground" audio excerpt below is from the October 3, 2013 podcast.]

A current article in Slate Magazine includes a map of the schools in the U.S. teaching creationism while receiving taxpayer funded vouchers or "scholarships."  A substantial number of Pennsylvania schools that both teach creationism and receive public funding through "school choice" programs were not included on that map.  It will be important to keep updating the map to include all of the programs that divert public funds to private schools, and to emphasize that the public-funded teaching of creationism is not limited to the South. [Graphic at right is title of a chapter on creationism in A Beka's Matter & Motion in God's Universe textbook.]