Texas to change history books

I know that I'm late talking about this, but I've still got a lot to say.  The Texas school board approved a change in the social studies curriculum.  They think that the current history books have a liberal bias and are taking steps to correct that.  They are trying to cast conservative historical figures in a more flattering light than they currently are.  The problem?  There were no historians, sociologists, or economists consulted at the meetings.  Some of the issues they are concerned with are:

• The separation of church and state.  They don't think that the U.S. Constitution supports this idea and want to remove it from the textbooks.  This fits nicely in with their idea that America was founded on Christian principles by Christians.  I'm sorry, but this is wrong.  1) Establishment Clause.  2) Treaty of Tripoli.  The U.S. is NOT a Christian nation, and it never was.  It is (and was always intended to be) a country that grants to its citizens the freedom of religion.  This means that every citizen can choose for himself which religion he belongs to, if he wishes to be part of one at all.  No citizen should be forced to follow the rules of any one religion, and no one religion should be endorsed by the government.  This means that NO, the U.S. is not a Christian nation.
• Evolution v. Intelligent Design.  Obviously, they are working to teach the theory of intelligent design in the classrooms along with evolution.  This is a problem because the whole premise of intelligent design assumes that there is a creator, which is an endorsement of religion.  This directly violates the first ammendment.
• Casting conservatives in a more positive light.  They want to explore more deeply the positive things that conservatives have done for history, such as supporting civil rights legislation.  Fine.  But who first came up with the legislation?  Not conservatives.
• Casting liberals in a more negative light.  They want to play up the bad things that liberals have done.  For example, they want to stress people like Malcolm X and the violence he promoted along side of Martin Luther King Jr.
• Thomas Jefferson.  The problem with him is that he was the person who first coined the phrase "separation of church and state".  We can see the issue here.  So they're trying to cut him out.

Wow.  My first reaction is horror - OMFG THEY'RE CHANGING HISTORY?!?  This is HUGE.  So much of my reality is shaped by my understanding of the past, of how we got here and why we are the way we are.  The idea that children are going to grow up thinking that the U.S. is a Christian nation and there is no separation of church and state is offensive to me.  By changing the way we view the past they're changing reality.  My reality is "as an American atheist, my government has a responsibility to represent me just as objectively as it represents Christians".  If a generation of kids grow up to believe that there is no separation of church and state, will that continue to be true?  I don't think so.

And yet, they have a point.  Conservatives are portrayed in a bad light in history textbooks.  I think this is for good reason - social and moral progress has historically been opposed by conservatives.  For example, the eradication of slavery.  Or women's sufferage.  Or marriage equality (both interracial marriage and gay marriage).  When we're viewing the debate about interracial marriage from our modern perspective, the conservatives who opposed it are inevitably going to look like douchebags.  BUT.  I do agree with the fact that it may go a bit too far.  I know that growing up with these American history textbooks, I definitely saw quite a bit of us/them and good guys/bad guys mentality.  This isn't helpful for learning about others and about cultures different from one's own, which is the whole point of history class.  We just learned "they had slaves in the south.  That was bad.  So we fought with them to free the slaves and we won!  The good guys won!  Yay liberals!"  I'm embarrassed to admit how old I was when I first realized that America isn't always the good guy.  A bit more of the other side's story might be good for students. 

So who gets to decide what really happened?  These history textbooks should reflect historical reality as much as possible.  I think that that's an admirable goal.  But who gets to decide what "historical reality" is?  Obviously, there are some things that are not debatable, and history is one of the areas where this happens a lot.  Some things either happened or they didn't.  However, there can be grey area, even in history.  Is there such a thing as objective reality?  I don't know.  So what happens when two people's realities don't match up?  This happens.  So who wins?  The people with the power.  History is written by the winners.  So does that mean that liberals are the winners?  The liberals do seem to win in the end (at least on issues of social and moral progress), and we have written the history books.  But what happens when the conservatives fight back?  What does that mean for the future?

Is this supposed to be funny?

Yesterday I went to a Catholic mass for a First Communion ceremony.  Everything was fine until the very end of the mass, when the priest told a joke:

A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.  One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist, and a member of the ACLU.
One day the professor shocked the class when he came in.  He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, 'GOD if you are real then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 minutes.' The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.  Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, 'Here I am  GOD, I'm still waiting.'
It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him; knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold. The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently.
The other students were shocked and stunned, and sat there looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, 'What in the world is the matter with you? Why did you do that?'  The Marine calmly replied, 'GOD was too busy today protecting America 's soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot. So He sent me.'
The classroom erupted in cheers!

The whole congretation laughed.  This was interesting to me and I had a number of different reactions.  The first reaction was from the gut (OMG not all atheists are arrogant and pompous and use their classrooms as a soapbox!).  Then I thought wait a minute, why are they all laughing and I'm not?  I wasn't offended by the joke.  I'm used to that characterization of atheists AND I was on their turf. The difference in our reaction to the joke is what interested me.  I think that they saw the joke as "good Christian boy stands up for God/his beliefs, and is witty to boot!  Haha!", whereas I saw the joke as "young man creates violence in the name of God/religion, and the rest of the class applauds him".  The fact that punching someone in the face so hard that they are out cold turns from "bad" to "good" when said person is an atheist (AND a member of the ACLU!  For shame!) is sad, and honestly a bit frightening.