Two Bad Bills

Oklahomans need to oppose two very bad education-related bills pending in the state Senate.

One bill, supported by the National Rifle Association and its Oklahoma affiliate, would allow college students to carry concealed weapons in classrooms. The other bill, sponsored by radical religious extremist state Rep. Sally Kern, could prevent teachers from presenting basic scientific principles and particular historical facts in high school courses.

Both bills are the product of the same radical neoconservative ideology, supported by the corporate media here, which has given our nation a botched, meaningless Iraq military occupation that will cost at least $3 trillion and an economic system that rewards the rich as it denies decent salaries and basic health care to hard-working Americans. The bills are part of the same stew of doublespeak and deception that has defined our country’s politics under the regime of Imperial President George Bush and the conservative juggernaut here in Oklahoma.

This, then, is what most Republicans and, sadly, some “Democrats” want for Oklahoma:

House Bill 2513 would allow trained students and faculty to carry concealed weapons in Oklahoma college classrooms. The bill is sponsored by state Rep. Jason Murphey, a Guthrie Republican, who argues an armed student body might prevent or reduce the magnitude of shooting episodes like the recent event at Virginia Tech University. The National Rifle Association and its affiliate, The Oklahoma Rifle Association, support the measure. All the state’s college presidents, including University of Oklahoma President David Boren, and most, if not all, of the organizations representing college faculty, oppose the bill. They oppose the bill, and rightly so, because they believe adding guns to the classroom could create more opportunities for violence and inhibit faculty and student recruitment. Will these armed students be trained to respond to a shooting incident? What if they misread events? What if they miss their intended target and kill you or your child? Who wants to teach a room full of armed students who may or may not be trigger happy? What student wants to sit next to someone who is emotionally distraught and carrying a pistol? The bill simply seems to be a basic NRA initiative to bring as many weapons as possible into the public sphere.

The bill passed the House by the amazing margin of 65-36. Yes, 65 Oklahoma adults in positions of power actually voted to turn our college classrooms into militia fortresses despite the nearly unanimous opposition to the measure by college educators. This is simply mind boggling. What does this mean in a larger sense about how we educate our students here and who controls basic classroom protocols and procedures? Should the NRA be in charge of OU or David Boren? I vote for Boren.

House Bill 2211, sponsored by the world famous Republican hero Kern, is supposedly a measure to prevent discrimination against expressing religious viewpoints at school. But the real point of the bill, which the House passed by a staggering 71-25 margin, seems to be to bring Christian fundamentalism into classrooms and especially science classrooms. Under the bill’s language, for example, a teacher could not penalize a student for expressing a religious view. What if a student refused to write a paper related to evolution theory or the scientific method? What if a student demanded to only deal with creationist ideas about the world? Would the teacher back down? What if a student challenged a teacher in the classroom and disrupted a class based on their religious beliefs? What if a student used a religious argument that was not applicable to a classroom or homework assignment? Who is to determine whether a religious argument is applicable to an assignment? A legislative committee headed by Kern herself perhaps?

It is not difficult to argue that Kern, the famous Oklahoma gay hater and religious extremist, is trying to turn our public classrooms into enclaves of Christian fundamentalism. (What rational person could see it otherwise given Kern’s religious statements in the past?) She and her fellow fundamentalist crusaders will do it one small step at a time unless she is defeated in the next election. Fortunately, Democrat Ron Marlett has announced he will run against Kern, and Marlett is sure to receive much support, but this bill is pending now. It needs to be defeated by the Senate or removed from consideration.

So far the legislative action on these two bills tells the world Oklahoma is a place in which a large portion of the leadership wants to arm its students for the classroom and prevent teachers from presenting basic scientific principles. This potential dark, backwards place will not be a good place to raise children or get an education no matter what the chamber of commerce flaks or The Daily Oklahoman editorial writers say.