A sweeping bill signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott requires that Texas schools must teach opposing views on all controversial social, historical or political issues, regardless of how stupid, insane or divorced from reality they might be.
His decision followed the Southlake Elementary School brouhaha over the recommendation by Gina Peddy, the school district’s executive director for curriculum, that students should be taught opposing views to the Holocaust.
“Now that I think about it,” Abbott said, “I’ve heard reports from some of my supporters that the supposed deaths of millions of Europeans from a specific, um, group 75 or 80 years ago was a hoax. Rumors like that can be very offensive to some people.”
He said he has issued an executive order requiring The Diary of Anne Frank be relabeled as a novel because his staff had been “unable to verify all the so-called facts in the book. Hiding out in an attic for more than two years? Really? Besides, ain’t no 16-year-old Texas girl who can write that good. I mean, come on.”
Abbott also said both sides of the “slavery issue in America” would now be required teaching in elementary and high school classes, particularly aspects regarding the arrival of what he called “non-caucasians” in 1619.
“For starters,” the governor said, “there wasn’t even a United States back then – not for another, I don’t know, maybe a hundred years or so? And from what I learned back in Duncanville High, many of them came here in response to ads in African newspapers looking for people to get a head start in careers like agriculture and housekeeping.”
Despite signing into law bills allowing Texans to carry guns without a license, allowing concealed weapons on college campuses, and getting rid of restrictions on the number of armed teachers in classrooms, Abbott said he could see how some people would want different rules about weapons taught in his state’s schools.
“For instance,” he said, “I imagine there are numerous parents of kindergartners and first graders who want their children to learn how to use a revolver or a semi-automatic pistol, or how to field-clean a rifle, or how to eliminate the fear of a weapon’s recoil, or where to aim, or how many shots are too many. These are all teachable.”
As for LGBTQ+ people, Abbott said there clearly are various sides to the issue and all should be taught under the banner of human rights.
“Some people believe that some of those rights should be denied to those who differ from the heterosexual norm,” he said. “Others believe that those who differ from the heterosexual norm should be jailed or deported. And still more who fear that if other people’s LGBT+ behavior and beliefs are denied, will their own right to bestiality be next?”
Asked whether “opposing views” on voting rights, abortion, evolution, climate science, environmental science, health science, any other kind of science, immigration and how much the Houston Astros still cheat should be debated and taught in Texas schools, Gov. Abbott said, “There are no opposing views as far as I know.”
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