Texas Homeschooler Running For Board Of Education Wants Big Sex Ed (And Education) Out Of Education

In today's Republican primary run-off election, a Texas businessman who homeschools one of his two kids is the Tea Party-backed primary challenger for the nomination to a seat on the State Board of Education. Eric Mahroum says that there have been entirely too many people on the Board who have worked in schools, and that a businessman is the best choice, because what do educators know about schools?

“We need someone who has a budget experience and money experience to deal with the permanent school fund. We need someone who will protect it and build on it,” Mahroum said.

Also, there's that "fathered a child at 16" thing, which he doesn't really talk about, but he totes opposes teaching sex about contraception in schools, because that sort of thing should only be mentioned in the home. If at all, if you get our drift.

In addition, Mahroum, favors allowing teachers to be armed, so they can defend their students and perhaps make sure no one mentions condoms. He also favors schools posting the Ten Commandments, because he doesn't know fuck-all about the Constitution:

“I’m for that [posting the commandments] realizing not every child is going to have a Christian background but our country as a whole, we stem from the Judeo Christian values,” Mahroum said.

It's not like there's any law that says you can't promote a particular religion, after all.

Mahroum's opponent in the run-off, incumbent Pat Hardy, is some lady with 30 years of education experience as a social studies teacher, which just means that she's part of the problem. She's probably never even killed an animal or open-carried a rifle into a restaurant! In the primary, the schoolhouse insider won 49.5% of the vote, not quite enough to avoid the run-off; Mahroum, who has been endorsed by several Texas creationists, received 43.5% of the vote despite his unfortunate Caesar-gone-wrong haircut.

Following this year's general elections, the State Board of Education will decide how much schools should teach about contraception, and whether the topic should be included in textbooks. Texas Freedom Network spokesman Dan Quinn says,

Right now the standards require that students learn about condoms and other forms of birth control but the health text books in classrooms right now are almost entirely abstinence-only, not a shred of information about condoms or contraception ... And that’s alarming in a state with one of the highest teen birth rates in the nation.

Mr. Mahroum has accused Ms. Hardy of voting too often with "moderates" on the State Board, which in Texas could mean anything from " prefers vaccinations to faith healing" to "advocatesgodless 'critical thinking.'" 

[ KERA News & Texas Freedom Network via TPM ]

 Follow Doktor Zoom on Twitter. He supports printing the 10 Commandments on condoms.