Earlier this week, Oklahoma truck-nut Senator Marcuswayne Mullin put up his drain rod to hop on News Nation to talk about being passed over to serve in Trump’s cabinet and other issues of the day.
Naturally, one of those other issues was the dogged attempt by his home state homeboy Ryan Walters to put the Bible in Oklahoma public schools.
Surprisingly, instead of pivoting to saying the Department of Education needs to be abolished and liberals are trying to push the religion of atheism across America or some other propagandistic garbage, he answered the question honestly and accurately and said putting Bibles in schools is – just like electing a known liar to the Senate – a very “slippery slope.”
Well, at least that’s what social media and The Hill - owned by Nexstar – wants you to believe.
Yep, it’s official. Even Marcuswayne Mullin – a southeastern Oklahoma political dur-hickey like Ryan Walters – thinks putting the Bible in schools is a “slippery slope.”
You know, kind of like electing a silver-spooned plumber to the House of Representatives—before you know it, they’ll actually think they’re smart and will try to pursue even more power in the Senate!
Naturally, the article caught fire on social media, with many in the anti-Ryan Walters crowd re-sharing it, and positioning the Senator's quote as a refute of Ryan's biblical crusade, or even "a voice of reason."
If these Internet scavengers – many of which only skim headlines – actually read the whole article they'd possibly have a different take:
Mullin, who sits on the Senate committee that oversees education, said that he wants his kids to know the Bible, “but I want it to be taught by someone that was taught the Bible themselves, too. I think it’s a slippery slope when you put it in the hands of teachers that may not be believers, that’s going to be teaching the word that can easily be taken out of context.”
“So if the state is going to require that, then the state should also require that this is taught by someone that graduated from seminary school,” Mullin said during his Wednesday appearance on NewsNation’s show “The Hill.”
“If you just leave it in the hands of a public school teacher that may not be able to actually teach it because they weren’t taught it themselves, then it can cause a tremendous amount of confusion,” he added.
Maybe I’ve lived in this right-wing dystopia called Oklahoma for too long, but I don’t think I’m being an alarmist when I say my first instinct after reading all that wasn’t “Wow. Marcuswayne Mullin disagrees with Ryan's call to put the Bible in schools!” but…
“Holy shit! They’re going to start putting priests, chaplains, and youth ministers in public schools to teach the Bible!"
That fear was reinforced by the rest of his comments:
When asked by NewsNation host Blake Burman on Wednesday if the state should “back off” of the mandate, Mullin said that “unless they’re going to require a person that was trained in the Bible and graduated from seminary school or a different type of Bible school, then, yes, I do believe that’s probably the wrong move.”
Yep, Marcuswayne thinks the Bible mandate is “probably the wrong move,” unless, of course, you – hint hint – bring in someone “who was trained in the Bible and graduated from seminary school or a different type of Bible school” to stop by and teach it.
Then it’s fine!
In other news, that sound you just heard was Ryan Walters typing up his new mandate to put priests, youth ministers and and church elders inside Oklahoma public schools.
Seriously, what’s the more likely scenario here?
Ryan Walters (and other Christian Nationalists) suddenly listening to reason and dropping the quest to put the Bible in schools because it’s a “slippery slope,” or Ryan Walters announcing a plan for history teachers to bring in volunteer preachers to teach about the Bible?
I think we know the answer.
If you ask me, Marcuswayne’s comments didn't refute Walters, but simply foreshadowed the next holy crusade by right-wing theocrats to evangelicalize Oklahoma public schools.
They also revealed what we already know: the slippery slope isn’t putting the Bible in schools—it’s the evangelical campaign to turn schools into pulpits.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
