Two wingnuts have recently faced very simple conundrums. Luckily, there is a simple solution to satisfy them and absolutely no one else.
First, Donald Trump needs a shitload of money, partly because he is a cheap grifter of the highest caliber who probably still has the first dollar he ever earned screwed into the floor somewhere, and partly because thanks to much of his grifting, he has legal bills that approach the GDP of several mid-size Latin American nations.
At the same time, Oklahoma’s Bible-humping, Libs of Tik Tok-loving state Education Secretary Ryan Walters needs a metric fuck-ton of Bibles to fulfill his requirement that every classroom in his state have one so teachers can explain to all the children, even the Jewish and Muslim and Hindu and Shinto ones, that Jesus is the only true God and they better embrace him posthaste if they don’t want to spend eternity back-stroking through the Lake of Fire or having red-hot pokers shoved up their urethras by a cackling and bloated Rhys Ifans, or whatever torments await them in the afterlife for not being Christians.
But these can’t be just any Bibles. When Walters opened bids to Bible vendors to supply Oklahoma’s schools with this First Amendment violation last Monday, he announced that the Bible he will choose must be not only a King James version of the Good Book. It must also be one that also contains copies of America’s Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and who the hell knows what else, maybe a lyrics sheet for Casting Crowns’ “Only Jesus” or all the “Left Behind” books, why not, might as well include all the sacred evangelical texts.
Luckily, there is a solution to both Trump’s and Walters’s problems: Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” Bible, which is based on the King James version, contains copies of America’s founding documents, and is endorsed by Trump, who licensed his name and image for use in selling the book. So he gets money, Walters gets his Bibles, all the children’s souls get saved, everyone’s happy except for lots of parents, lawyers, state officials, organizations concerned with maintaining the separation of church and state, and all the kids who are going to get Jesus shoved down their throats like a double dosage of Robitussin.
Of course, Walters has to pretend he’s not shoveling taxpayer funds into Donald Trump’s pockets, lest he draw the ire of state officials or voters or judges who might, despite the current Supreme Court’s efforts, still believe in the First Amendment’s governing of religion in publicly funded spaces. So this is an ostensibly open bidding process, albeit one that will only last two weeks instead of the usual four and has only one possible winner. And that winner is not going to be, say, Mardel Christian and Education, a vendor that sells 2,900 versions of the Bible, not one of which meets Walters’s requirements.
The “God Bless the USA” Bible costs $60 a pop and Walters wants 55,000 copies for a total outlay of $3.3 million. Which is a nice chunk of change to pull out of an underfunded education system, but can you really put a price on saving the eternal souls of every schoolchild in Oklahoma? You cannot.
Does Oklahoma even need that many copies of the Bible? Well:
Though Walters has frequently said he wants Bibles in every classroom, he has also clarified publicly that he wants them in classes where the Bible might apply to academic standards, such as history or literature. The request for 55,000 copies doesn’t fit either scenario; there are only 43,000 classroom teachers in the state, and many fewer teaching just history or literature.
Walters is clearly trying to disguise his “a Bible in every classroom” demand as something more secular where the Bibles are simply curiosities to be studied in their historical context. And to do that, he needs enough Bibles to fill an extra-large container ship, apparently.
It should be noted that Walters is facing a lot of pushback in his own state. A former Oklahoma state attorney general is pretty sure Walters’s policy violates state law. Also, school districts don’t necessarily have to follow this edict, since the state supreme court has said local school districts have control over their own curricula. So even district superintendents who might also share Walters’s faith are still telling him to slurp shit and die or go live in Tulsa*, whichever is worse:
“We will not be forcing our teachers to do this,” Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller said on News Nation on Aug. 12. “As a Christian myself, the idea of diminishing the word of God to a mere classroom prop is a little repulsive to me, so we will not be complying with that directive of having a physical Bible in every classroom.”
For his part, Walters has been touting Trump’s praise of his effort to make Oklahoma “the first state in the country to bring the Bible back to every classroom.” He also called Trump a “leader on this issue.”
A more cynical person might suspect Walters is trying to leapfrog to national prominence, perhaps via a position in Trump’s Cabinet if he wins the election or his endorsement for a higher office, and that he is using taxpayer funds and ignoring his students’ constitutional rights to do so. And we are definitely that cynical.
*Tulsa’s actually a nice town, GARY.
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