Bible Class in GA High Schools

Of all the bone-headed ideas the GA General Assembly has ever done, this law has to rank up at the top for King of Dumb & Vote Pandering.

As the Macon Telegraph is reporting, very few school systems are offering this "mandatory elective" in the public high schools.

The problems with this are Legion. Lawsuits await. The General Assembly went after the naive & played the "church vote" so they could say: "Look what we did! We got the Bible Class in our high schools!" The material hoped to supplement the class is from the Bible Literacy Project or the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, both of which are far, far from being historically accurate or fostering science education.

But that's how politics works. Fine. I can understand it at the state level, even if I don't like it.

When it comes to roost at the local level, I am even more disgusted.

I attended a Town Hall Meeting for the Paulding County Board of Education in Fall of 2006 & asked the then superintendent what the plans were for the 2007 year regarding this Mandatory Elective Bible Class. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Well, they didn't. They local BOE simply refused to act. No discussion. No public input. No record of what BOE members said. No recorded vote. It just didn't happen. I suppose we are to assume they decided to not offer the class.

Fine. I think that is a wise move. But I would like to know why the BOE never made a public announcement this was their decision.

My question is "why?" Why no public input? Why no public debate? Why no public record of how each BOE member voted? Why was the community not allowed to participate in one of the most hotly contested issues across the state in January 2006?

Is this a political move? Was this simply glossed over to not embarrass any locally elected state reps (e.g. Glen Richardson, Paulding County representative, the Speaker of the House & his run 2010 run for governor?), or our own BOE members?

Why? Surely the local community would like to know each BOE's member stand on such an issue that was the subject of such controversy in the General Assembly. Now that the local BOE has to make the decision, is it a political move that they don't want anyone to know how they came to their conclusion?

Politics is such s disgusting sport.