The American Family Association (AFA), a prominent religious right group that refers to members as "front-line troops in the culture wars," is getting involved in a debate over Bible-based curriculum in Michigan according to the organization's Agape Press news service. Agape Press reports that Steve Crampton, the chief counsel for the AFA's legal division, the Center for Law & Policy, is defending the constitutionality of a two semester Bible elective course being considered for high school students in Howell, Michigan after an organization called Michigan Atheists questioned the constitutionality of the proposed course an article in the Detroit News. Michigan Atheists, whose primary purpose is defending the wall between separation of church and state, highlighted the fact that courts in Kansas, Missouri, Texas, and Illinois have been threatened with legal challenges to courses produced by the National Council of Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS), of which the proposed Howell course would follow. In response to the concerns raised by Michigan Atheists, Crampton described the allegations that the curriculum has been threatened with legal challenges as "flatly untrue" and called for a retraction of the statement in the Detroit News and is considering legal action to force a retraction. While the curriculum may never have been challenged itself, at least one school district using the curriculum--Lee County in Florida--was sued over the curriculum and eventually stopped using it. In 1999, Georgia's Attorney General issued a statement saying that the curriculum might not survive a legal challenge on constitutional grounds.
The course being proposed in Howell is prepared by a national organization called the National Council of Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS), a group that claims to have brought similar courses to 37 states and 373 school districts, although numerous journalists have reported that NCBCPS will not disclose a lists of these districts. While the Council promotes its curriculum as an objective Bible curriculum, it originates on the religious right and is supported by a variety of prominent organizations and individuals involved both with the religious right and the more far right elements within the religious right. The curriculum has been endorsed by a variety of prominent religious right organizations and representatives of such organizations including the American Family Association, the Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for America, and director of the Family Research Council Tony Perkins. The curriculum is also endorsed by two groups associated with the more extremist aspects of the religious right, the Center for Reclaiming America (who is listed on the NCBCPS' homepage as a primary sponsor of the curriculum), an offshoot of D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries and a group that advocates a dominionist view that interprets the Bible literally and believes that God has called on them to take over the government of the United States, and the Conservative Caucus, a group formed in the 1970s and that has included many prominent members of the religious right, including D. James Kennedy. A review of the curriculum conducted by the Texas Freedom Network found that it promotes a dominionist view by teaching that the Bible is the "Word of God" and teaching that the United States is a Christian nation based on Bible rather than the Constitution.
According to the Texas Freedom Network, it is not surprising that the curriculum supports such views when one considers the curriculum's advisors and endorsers, of whom the majority are involved in the religious right. The National Council of Bible Curriculum in Public Schools' founder, Elizabeth Ridenour, is a member of the Council for National Policy, a secretive group connecting religious right activists and funders in order to coordinate policy, a connection that roots the NCBCPS in the context of a broader and coordinated religious right movement. Individual endorsers of the NCBCPS' curriculum include Linda Jeffrey who leads the RSVP America Campaign and who claims that Dr. Alfred Kinsey's research has led to moral decay and rampant sexuality. Jeffery is also associated with the religious right groups American Legislative Exchange Council and Concerned Women for America. Endorser David Barton, a former head of the Texas is founder and head of Wallbuilders, an organization that the Texas Freedom Network described as producing videos advocating theocracy. Barton has called the United States a "Christian Nation" and has called the separation of church and state "a myth." The endorsers include a variety of legal organizations that work to insert Christian values and practices into government, including the National Legal Foundation, Pacific Justice Institute, American Center for Law and Justice, and the Liberty Legal Institute. Moreover, two members of the NCBCPS' Board of Directors come from the religious right American Family Association and Alliance Defense Fund groups. Its "Advisory Board," in addition to containing a selection of legislators, includes dominionists D. James Kennedy and David Barton, while Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus and Rus Walton of the Plymouth Rock Foundation have served in the past, both of whom advocate a theocracy based on a literal reading of the Bible.
Aside from the connections of its individual members and endorsers, the NCBCPS has been criticized for promoting a sectarian and ideological interpretation of the Bible that promotes a conservative view arguing that the United States should be based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. While the National Council of Bible Curriculum revised its curriculum in response to a 2005 report produced by the Texas Freedom Network and removed some of the more egregious aspects including plagiarism and factual errors, it continues to promote a far right ideology. A review of the revised curriculum by the Texas Freedom Network found that a number of factual errors were corrected and some plagiarized material deleted, although the curriculum continued to rely on popular rather than scholarly sources, does not identify its authors, and has not been reviewed by scholars with full-time academic positions. The revised version also continues to promote an ideological agenda, routinely promoting resources produced by Wallbuilders and advocating the showing of a Wallbuilders' video, Foundations of American Government, that argues the United States' "Founding Fathers" did not want church and state to be separated and that the United States has entered a period of social chaos since the removal of Bible reading and prayer from the public schools. Wallbuilders' founder, David Barton, is characterized as being a historian according to the Texas Freedom Network, despite his being a political activist. The Texas Freedom Network describes the curriculum as making a "broader argument for an increased role of religion in public and civic life" featuring numerous out-of-context quotes from the "Founding Fathers" seeming to oppose the separation of church and state while avoiding quotations supporting it.
Michigan's Frankenmuth School District decided against offering curriculum in 2005 after board members and the district's superintendent raised questions about both the constitutionality and the academic rigor of the course.
