Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters is pushing to put more Bibles in the classroom, but which ones?

A report from from The Oklahoman confirmed that Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters is pushing to put more Bibles in the classroom, but it appears the bid might have been rigged to benefit Donald Trump.

The Oklahoma Department of Education opened bids this past week to vendors to supply the Department with about 55,000 new Bibles to place in the public schools system.

According to The Oklahoman, the requirements for the vendors include:

“Bibles must be the King James Version; must contain the Old and New Testaments; must include copies of the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights; and must be bound in leather or leather-like material.”

Is it a coincidence that few Bibles meet those requirements? The Bible endorsed by Trump, however, does. Trump receives fees for endorsing musician Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A. Bible, which has been endorsed by Trump., and those Bibles likely would meet Oklahoma’s requirements.

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  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    321·
    1 month ago

    The requirements literally violate church/state seperation because it requires a specific version of the Bible that also has to contain things like the constitution and declaration of independence.

    No one makes a bible like that because it doesn’t make any sense.

      • Spezi@feddit.orgEnglish
        6·
        1 month ago

        Nowhere does it say that it should only contain the listed requirements. If you are the lowest bidder, I‘m sure you can throw in a few bonus pages about the importance of the right to choose, equality, other religions and much more. The possibilities are endless.

      • WaxiestSteam69@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 month ago

        There are plenty of E-Bibles (pardon my terrible term) available on the Internet for free since many translations are in the public domain. Edit: All of the other stuff is available via webpages, multiple e-book formats, and on webpages. Again, it’s all public domain.

    • KoboldCoterie@pawb.socialEnglish
      7·
      1 month ago

      The dumbest thing about this is, doesn’t the Trump bible only contain the parts of the constitution that they like, and omit others? So if the requirement is that it contains “the Constitution”, does the Trump bible even really qualify?

      • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 month ago

        I guess that’s the reason for the nonsensical wording “U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights,” since it incorrectly attempts to imply that all the Amendments are anything other than an integral part of the Constitution itself to begin with.

      • dubious@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 month ago

        stop trying to make sense of it. logic fails on the average conservative. you have to realize that there is no reasoning with them. that’s the first step. once you do, you can then begin to ask yourself, “what do we do to stop them?”

    • abff08f4813c@j4vcdedmiokf56h3ho4t62mlku.srv.us
      1·
      1 month ago

      The requirements literally violate church/state seperation because it requires a specific version of the Bible that also has to contain things like the constitution and declaration of independence.

      This is interesting though because if the religion is okay to incorporate those elements, then … it’s only an issue if the religion doesn’t want interference from the State, but the State tries pushing it anyways.

      No one makes a bible like that because it doesn’t make any sense.

      Only one fits the criteria as per the article. Basically the requirements were developed so only orange voldemort’s bible would fit. (His is also interesting because in addition to mixing church/state, politics is getting added into mix too - whereas we often see things like the Hatch Act - https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/13/politics/what-is-the-hatch-act/index.html - designed to try and keep them separate.)