We are heading out to Oklahoma to talk about Superintendent Ryan Walters and what he did this week that was weird, heinous, and cruel and just downright obnoxious. Kelly has the story.
Kelly my top favorite elected religious bigot. Oklahoma school superintendent Ryan Walters has tried to break the US Constitution once again, this time claiming that people pointing out that he is breaking the law are, in his eyes, breaking the law. Walters is claiming that the Freedom from Religion Foundation, whom he calls radical atheists, are attacking individuals, teachers, and students, a claim that, of course the ffi UP denies and
there is absolutely no evidence. So last month, the FFI UP did successfully sue Walters and kept him from spending three million dollars on Trump Bibles to put in every classroom within the state of Oklahoma. This lawsuit filed recently by Walters against the atheist organization really looks more like retribution for that success over the superintendent's religious policies. Then
it does look like something that is, you know, constitutionally legal. However, Walters has already shown he is more than willing to put the Bible before the Constitution in Oklahoma's public schools. Now, you don't need to be a lawyer. You don't even need to have ever watched the show on TV about lawyers to know that this lawsuit is a joke and cannot gain any traction in the US Federal court. This story is from The Friendly Atheist by Hem and Metta from April Tecod twenty twenty five.
Thank you so much, Kelly, and I'm going to stick with you because I think that you alluded to this when your introduction. But you know, why do some political leaders, especially with mister Walter, frame church state or as I was recently told, religion and government separation as an attack.
Why why do they see it that way?
You know what?
I I don't know why they see it that way. I understand that the them seeing that way is what is becoming a large problem for us in many places like Oklahoma. We're having problems with in Texas with the schools there, in Louisiana with the schools there where they now have to post the Ten Commandments in all the classrooms. And I think these people see this as a win
over secular society. Like you know, they took prayer out of school back in the nineteen fifties, and we're gonna damn make sure it gets back in there, even if we have to, even if we have to do it little by little by little. I mean, they chipped away to abortion rights for fifty years until they got what they almost have it completely what they wanted, and they're still working on that. But it's the same type of strategy or just gonna chip away at it, chip chip chip,
chip chip. Nobody notices the chip. Everybody notices when you're knocking arm office that you little chip off the bottom of it. Nobody notices until it's too late.
Yeah, And they're doing it little by little, like you said. Here in Texas, they're doing the same thing. You know, the thing commandments, the bluebonnet curberculum that has a lot of like biblical stories on it. It passed, it pass is actually unless so, I mean, religion just does not belong in public spaces, especially in tax funded places like you know, schools. And I think Ryan Walters is confusing
what freedom of religion means. Like it doesn't mean you're free to bring your religion into all of these places, right, freedom of religion means that you can practice whatever religion you want as long as you're not showing it in other people's faces. Like, freedom from religion is just as important as freedom of religion.
So I think that when we're looking at some polical leaders like Ryan Walters, and I think that this is one of the reasons why we cover him a lot, is because I don't really believe that they understand that the freedom from religion is also a protectant for the religion, because what ends up happening is that you do not have government, the state, the nation coming into your institution tell you how you're supposed to practice your said religion or put stipulations on you on how your religion is
supposed to go. So it's protecting the religious as well as us who happen to want to live our lives secular. We don't necessarily have to be concerned with religious edicts,
institutions and the like dictating our life. But unfortunately, people like Ryan Walters and other Christian nationalists who have been elected into office are blurring those lines, and other institutions that prop them up are blurring those lines so that they can now dictate no matter what your belief is, or even if you are not necessarily a Christian or a believer in Christ or anything like that, how you're supposed to live your life. This is the problem, and
it's even creeping into our curriculum. You notice, like I'm pretty sure that you because we covered this before in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four is the most that you will see like different institutions actually spending money on school board election, like record amounts of money being spent on school board election because they want to put people into and when I say they, I mean Christian nationalist institutions want to put people into those seats that
are of their ideology in order for them to influence curriculum, to be able to indoctrinate kids, get them while they're young. This is why Ryan Walters is pushing Bibles in school specific Bibles with the Constitution or the pream or whatever the hell was in front. There's a leather bound and all this other craziness. I was like, can you imagine like a kindergartener like walking around with this big go leave the bound Bible school. I'm learning to read, mama,
Like you know, it's just absolutely ridiculous. And and now that this is going to be the thing that's going to be influencing like what they're being taught. It's insane. But I know that Rob, you mentioned that you don't necessarily believe that this is real. Can you just like expand like what your thoughts are when it comes to this.
Whole Yeah, Ultimately, I Ryan Walter confuses me because I don't. I'm genuinely curious. This isn't a bit like if he understands what the protections of freedom of religion are and things like that like that generally people are not that stupid, especially if you become superintendent, even though it's possible to have that happen. So what I don't, what I absolutely don't want to do is just like make fun of
a dude or tell him he's dumb. But like, as he keeps coming up, I actually don't know if he's villain and monstrous or if he's just this abjectly stupid, Like it can only be one of the other. So what was happening is specifically that came up is at least one teacher was specifically doing a Bible reading a prayer before every class that was not relevant to the material. And since they're a school which receives government funding, they are not allowed to push any particular religion. And since
you can totally study religions in school, you should. You cannot give one more of a mouthpiece as if it has any more credibility or realness to it. So this wasn't like, oh, some of the students wanted to hold a prayer sometimes and the Freedom from Religious said no, No. The school staff was literally putting on prayer with the students. This cannot occur. This is a strictly obviously, there is no two ways of about it. Illegal act. Cool. Okay,
so we're there. This is wrong. Now this guy comes in and says they can't tell us to stop, and I'm like, my dude, yes they can because it is clearly illegal. There's no wiggle room here. So at some point I have to stop believing that he's this stupid, because he can't be. He must be monstrous. I have found this to be evil with the amount of times he brings it up and refuses to change his behavior.
This is Robbie. You just say that what they were doing was illegal, and you should just a little bit of what you know, what the story was that. Let me should just just a little bit more detailed. But from what I read in an auticle, and at least one instance a student actually read Bible versus to the whole class, like in front of the class, for the whole class. So and then the district, also, the whole district, not just one school, was beginning the school day with
mandatory student let prayer over the loudspeaker. After but this was after the first period would start. Therefore, like everybody was forced to partake in that. Like you couldn't just get out of it because it was already class had already started, so you would get in trouble if you wanted to get out. You know that if it was something like a moment of silence, that would be legal.
So what they tried to do to get away with it was like they would instruct students to who were making out this announcements to call it that, to call it a moment of silence or prayer. But it wasn't done quietly. It was followed by the student making the announcement praying over the intercome for the entire fucking school. So like it was definitely not secular and it was definitely illegal.
I think that we're what we're dealing with is that the right is using. And I think that you guys probably remember this case with Joe Kennedy from who was a teacher. He was a football coach in Alabama who was marching or telling his he was leading prayers rather on the fifty yard line after every game, even though his team was not a winning team. I repeat, the team sucked like never won a championship. That all the
praying in the world did not help their playing. The praying did not help the playing but soever and this, and the school ended up discontinuing his contract when his
contract was up. They did not want to renew it, even though they told him multiple times like hey, mister Kennedy, tell you what pray, but can't you do it like in the locker room and not on the fifty yard line when you're done, Because he was not just he was telling the students and inviting others even from like the other team and other people who happened to be around and other students to come out and with them
taking knee do all this other bullshit. Right, So it was a case that the appellate court said, no, the school was in the right in order for them not to renew the contract. There's no rights that was violated here. If anything, you messed up because you were at a public school and you blurred the lines of the establishment. Cause that's what you did, mister Kennedy. And so they were in their right because they tried to work with you within your means and you decided to do your
own thing. Goes all the way up to the Supreme Court, all the way up to the Supreme Court felt it was so interesting that the concurrent address from none other than Brent Kavanaugh was his religious freedom practices were violated, so the school was made to put him back into his position, even though he moved all the way from Alabama to Florida, or almost over one hundred miles away.
And what did he do after he got rehired was that he quit? He quit, he quit, he quit quit.
Yeah, he quit. I think it wasn't even after one game.
Yeah, I think it was one game he played.
Yeah, after one game he quit. So I mean, like so, it was a waste of time, It was a waste of backspayer money to even have this case. It shouldn't even have been taken up in the first place. But even though he did all of that, it was more so a thing of Hey, now the Supreme Court has said, chat right, yeah, we're chipping. We're chipping. Now, We're chipping. We're chipping. Now. Now the Supreme Court has said that, hey, he was able to do this because his religious freedom
practices were violated by the school. Then now all the people who are paid attention to this particular case, who are in a Christian nationalist sphere is saying, okay, let's go ahead and push this. Even Justice Soto Mayor said, the Lemon Test. Look it up, guys, the Lemon Test is dead. But I want to hear more from Kelly because I want to know about the oppositions to Walters and how it actually may be affected in the better or affected in the worse.
There has been some quite a bit of opposition of Walter's policies throughout the state, especially in Tulsa, where last year three candidates who were elected to the city school
Board were openly defiant of Walter's policies in public. There's also been a lot of criticism from the indigenous peoples who are trying to keep their traditional beliefs with their children because they're getting bombarded with Christian messages at public schools, which is really the very place where something like this shouldn't be happening. So there are some bright spots in
opposition to them, people who probably deserve more support. Here's something that sounds bad, but it might really be good in the long term. In the long run. His term in office is up next year, and so is the guy owner's term. Now there's been rumors about him running for the governor's office and instead of re running for a superintendent, and quite frankly, I'm not sure he can win that post. With his radical, far right religious views, they do tend to not carry over to higher state offices.
Oklahoma might be a little bit different, but I don't think I still don't think he'd be able to win the governor's On the governor's election, he is in his first elected office altogether, so people don't know what they were getting for the most part when they elected him the first time. They But now that his views and his ideas are out there for all to see, he's been criticized all across the country. I'm pretty sure he just won't be elected as governor, let alone school superintendent again.
So hopefully, you know, we'll see him maybe try to run for that office, and in the process of running for that office not being a school superintendent.
Also, you hope, you hope. But the issue is that when people like Trump can run and win, that what's happening is all of this that he's doing is meant to galvanize and virtue signal.
I guess man, you know, well, I.
Just have to reiterate that we here at the atheist community as Austin does not actually endorse nor doing a great any type of candidates who happen to run or actually are an office at this particular time. I think that when it even comes with this particular case, like we are looking specifically at the policies that this particular vers is doing now, whether if they are going to go for a different office or not, we don't know what that what would happen as far as like them
actually occupy in that office. But you know, if they win, if they lose, or even if they run it all it will be up to the people to decide if they're going to be in office, and we will not endorse them or dedorse them I don't even know if that's a word. Or oppose them, I like dedoors, but you know, all words are made up regardless, yes, indoors or oppose them, whether they're going to be an office
or not. But I did want to ask a question to the panel in of itself, and I'm going to start with you, aj THN, Kelly, and then Rob because at the end of the day, one of the things that we have to look at when it comes to the possible indoctrination or the not indoctrination of children in schools is those who happen to be in the classrooms, that's you know, teaching. So how can educators uphold constitutional law without being caught in the crossfire a political theater?
Aj please start, then Kelly and then Rob.
Well, I mean when any way you look at it, there are classes in the Constitution regarding religion, and one of them is, like you mentioned, that are really the establishments, and it says that the government cannot promote or indorse any particular religion. And this includes public schools because there are you know, government spaces, so public schools just cannot lead or require students to participate in prayer or display religious symbols and any of that stuff. And this also
includes teachers. So if teachers want to follow the law. They kind of they can say, you know what, I am not going to teach this curriculum that you're giving me that has biblical you know, connotations. I'm not going to display these tink Commandments on the wall because it's against the law, even though you know, they want to make it the law that schools needs to display the Ten Commandments whatever it is against the establishment class So yeah,
they can. They can definitely cite the Constitution to defend their decisions to oppose those type of things.
I don't think they cannot get caught in the middle of it. That's the problem. I don't. I don't think it's possible for him. And in fact, in Louisiana I mentioned that the Ten Commandments law that they passed have to be posted in all the classrooms. There is a lawsuit against that law and it was brought by a teacher who was actually the teacher of the Year in Louisiana. So, I mean, teachers are on the front lines here and they probably deserve more support than they're getting. And I
always said that about teachers. Teachers definitely need more support than they get.
So Rob, you're right, Ultimately, how can educators uphold constitutional law by doing their jobs without being caught in the crossfire by political theater. They cannot. The problem is executing the Constitution as it is written, or executing the spirit and the understanding of how the freedom of religion is supposed to be executed within the country. When that very execution is itself the thing being targeted, then when the teachers follow the law, they are in fact putting themselves
into the politicalness, the political theater of it all. It cannot be avoided. Therefore, don't try and stand strong, do more, be loud. You can't avoid it, so win.
Yeah, we understood that.
Yeah.
You know.
I've traveled around the country quite a bit over the last couple of years, and everywhere I go people are always complaining about stuff.
You know.
I hear them talking about LGBTQ rights, about inflation, about DEI, the wage gap, affirmative action, all kinds of stuff I hear people complaining about all the time, you name it. And I think it's time for Americans to shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up, get off your asses, put that game controller down, and go out there and start changing the things that you think need to be changed.
Well, I will say this people. Change does not happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up.