A report from from The Oklahoman confirmed that Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters is pushing to put more Bibles in the classroom, but it appears the bid might have been rigged to benefit Donald Trump.
The Oklahoma Department of Education opened bids this past week to vendors to supply the Department with about 55,000 new Bibles to place in the public schools system.
According to The Oklahoman, the requirements for the vendors include:
“Bibles must be the King James Version; must contain the Old and New Testaments; must include copies of the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights; and must be bound in leather or leather-like material.”
Is it a coincidence that few Bibles meet those requirements? The Bible endorsed by Trump, however, does. Trump receives fees for endorsing musician Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A. Bible, which has been endorsed by Trump., and those Bibles likely would meet Oklahoma’s requirements.
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This feels so blatantly illegal. This isn’t surprising in the slightest.
Inb4 No one will be punished and nothing is changed.
It violates the first amendment establishment clause they can’t privilege Christianity over other religions before even getting to the selection criteria obviously only one grifter can meet, but with the federal courts disproportionally filled by theocrats the separation remains very threatened.
It also violates collusion laws and also collusion clauses in their own terms found at
https://sde.ok.gov/ev00000555
Kinda odd that they chose to adbicate any fiduciary responsibility in order to prefer a book with an extremely specific physical design on the basis of durability, despite that design being so specific that it costs >10 times more than less specifically-designed books, when the only people who can acquiesce to such a request are political figures of the same affiliation
I worked at a major public university for 14 years during the late 90s / early 00s. This happens more than people realize.
I believe you. It doesn’t make it right, and I wish we could do something. Justice feels fairly hopeless at this point
Separation of church and state concerns aside, much less expensive Bibles are readily available. Paperback versions of the New King James Version are available online for $2.99 each, less than 5% of what the Trump-endorsed Bible would cost.
Conservatives, everyone. Don’t worry, a bunch of people will sue due to the anticompetitive and nonsensical nature of requirements and waste even more taxpayer money.
The requirements literally violate church/state seperation because it requires a specific version of the Bible that also has to contain things like the constitution and declaration of independence.
No one makes a bible like that because it doesn’t make any sense.
You can buy a 5 dollar bible and just stuff them in as inserts. I recommend you place a bid lol
Edit: this an ambulance chaser’s and an opportunistic troll’s wet dream
The dumbest thing about this is, doesn’t the Trump bible only contain the parts of the constitution that they like, and omit others? So if the requirement is that it contains “the Constitution”, does the Trump bible even really qualify?
The requirements literally violate church/state seperation because it requires a specific version of the Bible that also has to contain things like the constitution and declaration of independence.
This is interesting though because if the religion is okay to incorporate those elements, then … it’s only an issue if the religion doesn’t want interference from the State, but the State tries pushing it anyways.
No one makes a bible like that because it doesn’t make any sense.
Only one fits the criteria as per the article. Basically the requirements were developed so only orange voldemort’s bible would fit. (His is also interesting because in addition to mixing church/state, politics is getting added into mix too - whereas we often see things like the Hatch Act - https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/13/politics/what-is-the-hatch-act/index.html - designed to try and keep them separate.)
Yes.
Religion (ANY religion) is bad, but religion in schools is barbaric.
and the more they shove this stuff into the curriculum, the dumber the people get. the dumber the people get, the more likely we are to sleepwalk into the next global catastrophe. the entire future of the world seems to hinge on what the people who are alive now do. so what do we do?
