A Rally to oppose David Barton visit to Marietta, Ohio, September 18th, 2014 ... [View all]

[Fred ONeill]

To whom it may concern in southeastern Ohio. The keynote speaker at the Washington County Republican Reagan Day Dinner on September 18, 2014 will be evangelical pseudo-historian and lobbyist David Barton. A group of us (not necessarily Democrat, Republican, or Independent in makeup) will gather at Indian Acres Park in Marietta, Ohio at 5:00 p.m. to hold a "Rally for Truth and Justice" in opposition to Mr. Barton's visit. Barton is perhaps best known at the publisher of revisionist history and science textbooks that were adopted in 2009 by the Texas Board of Education. These include "curricula" items that downplay or deny theories about evolution, climate-change, revise elements of recent history such as the 1960s Civil Rights movement, and propose the ridiculous assumption that the nation's founders intended to establish a "Christian Constitutional Republic". Barton is not your average tea-partier, but is IMO a dangerous demagogue who works hand-in-glove with entities like James Dobson's "Family Research Council" and A.L.E.C. (American Legislative Exchange Council) to craft legislation to accommodate or support charter or church-run schools, oppose Common Core guidelines, demonize public-education, public-school teachers, and their unions. His "Wallbuilders" group works to impose religious views upon public-schools, make it difficult for certain minorities to vote, and to oppose the minimum-wage and all organized labor. Barton has been recorded delivering homophobic or borderline-racist statements ("homosexuality should be outlawed", "the role of Martin Luther King has been exaggerated in textbooks at the expense of the 'majority' in America", "America is not a democracy but a Constitutional Republic&quot . Barton's website is called "Veritas Rex", and he operates "Veritas Press" a textbook company that publishes anti-science, creationist, and/or revisionist texts for private-schools (one of these, the "Veritas Classical Academy" has recently been set up in Marietta, Ohio by some of the same people who are sponsoring Barton's appearance at the fall dinner). His visit is in conjunction with the recent sponsorship by State Representative Andy Thompson (R-95th District, Marietta) of HB-597 a pending GA item that goes far beyond its original intent (to eliminate Common Core in Ohio) into making drastic curricula changes in subjects such as science and history (it contains provisions mandating that, if such allegedly "political" topics like evolution are mentioned in class, then equal-attention must be given to the concepts of "creationism" and "intelligent-design"; it mandates that the United States must be defined as a "Constitutional Republic", and contains several other items that are near and dear to the hearts of Barton and his followers, and obviously reflect Barton's input or even ghost-written participation in the bill's crating ... A final note is that Barton is considered to be "one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in the nation." Washington County Republican Chairperson Leslie Haas is a fervent devotee of Barton and a leading member of the "9-12 Project", the local tea-party organization based upon the principles (sic) of Barton collaborator, Glenn Beck ... Haas has been bragging that the WCREC (Washington County Republican Executive Committee) has sold 337 tickets to the event (the MFD seating capacity for the Shrine Club building here is 330) so therefore it would be nice if our "Truth and Justice" event could attract 338 persons. Our event will be entirely peaceful - with complete compliance with local laws and signs that disagree with Barton without being nasty (i.e. "Say no to HB-597", "Keep church and state separate", "Stand up against hate&quot . This will hopefully be quite a contrast to what Haas and her group did two years ago here in Marietta when she and her thugs hurled epithets at the Nuns-on-the-Bus when they visited our fair city (the bad publicity via YouTube should have taught them a lesson but it didn't) . Any positive or reasonable person who can possibly join us at 5 p.m. tomorrow would most certainly be welcome. ~ Fred O'Neill, Marietta, Ohio