Oklahoma’s anti-LGBTQ+ education chief told schools to teach the Bible. They’re refusing.

Over a dozen public school districts in Oklahoma have said they won’t comply with a recent directive requiring them to teach about the Bible and the Ten Commandments. The state’s anti-LGBTQ+ Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters issued the directive in June and has threatened to penalize “rogue” districts that refuse “immediate and strict compliance” to his demands.

The state’s largest districts–including Bixby, Broken Arrow, Caddo, Collinsville, Deer Creek, Jenks, Moore, Norman, Owasso, Piedmont, Stillwater, Tulsa, and Yukon–have all publicly said they won’t alter their curriculum to follow Walters’ directive because it may violate state laws. Walters’ office released a five-page guideline last week on how to incorporate the Bible into lessons in late July, The Oklahoman reported.

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Walters’ guidance said that school lessons in grades five-through-12 should focus on the Bible’s influence on history, literature, music, and other arts and culture. His guidance also requires every classroom to contain a physical copy of the book and copies of the Ten Commandments, the U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, The Hill reported.

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The defiant school districts have said they won’t follow his order and will instead follow the current academic standards approved by the Oklahoma Legislature. Current state standards give schools the option to incorporate the Bible into their lessons, but it doesn’t require them to do so.

“To date, schools have been advised by legal counsel (School Board Association and State Attorney General) to not follow the guidance because it goes against current Oklahoma State Law,” said Lee Northcutt, superintendent of Caddo Public Schools.

The day that Walters released his guidance, Joseph Price, a parent of students in Mayes County, filed a lawsuit against the directive, saying it violates the separation of church and state. The directive may also violate the state’s rule-making laws.

For example, Walters introduced rules in 2023 that would have required schools to notify a student’s parents if the student mentioned wanting to change their pronouns or gender identity. In response, the state’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued a binding opinion voiding Walters’ new rules as unenforceable because the state legislature hadn’t authorized any state agency to create new rules on notifying parents about gender identity.

Nevertheless, Walters has threatened to target schools that have refused to comply with his Biblical standards.

“You’ve seen some rogue administrators making comments to the press and so I wanted to address those,” Walters said Wednesday morning. “Some of our worst acting districts [have] come out and say they are not going to teach history. They said they are not going to teach the Bible because they don’t want that. Just because they are offended by it doesn’t mean they won’t do it. We will enforce the law and they will be held accountable.”

A spokesperson from Walters’ office told The Hill, “Oklahoma school districts are required by state law to teach the historical significance of the Bible. Superintendent Walters will hold teachers and administrators accountable. Rogue, left-wing activists who refuse can leave Oklahoma and go to California.”

Rob Miller, superintendent of Bixby Public Schools, told the aforementioned publication, “Walters would probably [retaliate by attacking] our [state academic] accreditation or something of that nature, and then that would go to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, where I am confident they would again support the rights of local school districts to make that choice.” 

Miller suspects Walters would like the issue to advance to the U.S. Supreme Court where the court’s 6-3 conservative majority might rule in his favor. Conservatives have admitted that Republican attempts to insert Christianity and censor LGBTQ+ content in classrooms is part of a larger plan to delegitimize public schools so that taxpayer funds may go to Christian and exclusionary private schools instead.

In early April, Walters announced rules banning “pornographic material” and “sexualized content” from public school libraries, including 190 LGBTQ+ titles. The state attorney general invalidated that order as well. But while Walters and U.S. conservatives nationwide are eager to ban such “pornographic” books from schools, they seemingly don’t want that standard applied to the Bible.

The Bible — which isn’t an authoritative history text, as elucidated by Notre Dame University — contains stories of “incest, [masturbation], bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide,” one Utah parent reportedly noted in March. The book also contains passages supporting slavery and advocating for the murder of LGBTQ+ people and of women who have pre-marital sex.

The Bible has a story about two daughters who get their dad drunk to have sex with him to become impregnated. The Bible also mentions a woman who fondly remembers her lover as having “the penis like a donkey and a flood of semen like a horse.”

Walters, who wants to ban LGBTQ+ books but teach the Bible in public school history classes, has previously pushed the transphobic lie about schools providing litterboxes to students who identify as cats. He also referred to teachers’ unions as “terrorist organizations” and illegally tried to make rules banning LGBTQ+ books and transgender bathroom access in schools.

He has appeared at events hosted by Moms for Liberty, a right-wing anti-LGBTQ+ “parent’s rights” group that has been called an extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He also appointed Chaya Raichik, an anti-LGBTQ+ activist who goes by Libs of Tik Tok online, as a Library Media Advisor for the state (even though she has no educational experience, doesn’t reside in Oklahoma, and has made posts that have led to bomb threats against students).

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