The far right religious fanatics appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to the State Board of Education are at it again.

Led by David Barton of the extreme fundamentalist group Wallbuilders (who don’t believe in the separation of church and state), the three fanatics on the panel are trying to subvert the social studies curriculum to insert their fantasy-driven ideas about American history, and remove mentions of important minority figures like Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez.

The Texas Freedom Network liveblogged the proceedings at yesterday’s hearing, and has a wrap-up here: Important Progress.

Today’s State Board of Education hearing on proposed new social studies standards for Texas public schools was long and often exhausting. (Scroll down to find our blog posts from the hearing.) But we noted some important progress for ensuring that our schoolchildren get an honest and sound education.

In particular, David Barton and Peter Marshall were in full retreat from their calls over the summer to remove Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall from the social studies standards. When questioned today by state board members, the two claimed they had never really wanted to blacklist the two famous civil rights leaders. Oh no, they simply thought that Chavez and Marshall had been misplaced in the standards. By suggesting that discussion of Chavez be moved elsewhere, for example, Barton even claimed he was trying to make room for more minorities. Marshall protested that he had only wanted to make sure that the two were discussed in their proper context. …

But while we made some progress today on one front in the far-right’s curriculum “culture war,” the board’s far-right faction continued to pressure curriculum teams to rewrite the history of the relationship between religion and government in the United States. They insisted that the teams include standards suggesting that our nation and government were founded on conservative Christian biblical principles. Those efforts to distort history — and undermine important protections for religious freedom in our country — are likely to continue until the final vote on new curriculum standards in March.

Here’s a little more information about David Barton:

In 1991 Barton addressed the Rocky Mountain Bible Retreat of Pastor Pete Peters’ Scriptures for America, a group that espouses the racist “Christian Identity” theology. Advocates of this bizarre dogma insist that white Anglo-Saxons are the “true” chosen people of the Bible and charge that today’s Jews are usurpers. Aside from being a virulent anti-Semite, Peters has advocated the death penalty for homosexuals. According to the Anti-Defamation League, other speakers at the event included white supremacist leader and 1992 presidential candidate James “Bo” Gritz, a leader of the radical and increasingly violent militia movement, and Malcolm Ross, a Holocaust denier from Canada. In November of that same year, Barton spoke at Kingdom Covenant College in Grants Pass, Oregon, another “Christian Identity” front group with ties to Peters.

Asked to explain these actions, Barton’s reply amounted to a not very creative “I didn’t know they were Nazis” dodge. In a July 1993 letter, Barton assistant Kit Marshall wrote, “At the time we were contacted by Pete Peters, we had absolutely no idea that he was ‘part of the Nazi movement.’ He contacted us for David to speak for Scriptures for America. The title is quite innocuous. In all the conversations that I personally had with Pete Peters, never once was there a hint that they were part of a Nazi movement. I would also like to point out that simply because David Barton gives a presentation to a group of people does not mean that he endorses all their beliefs.” An excuse like that might have washed one time, but it stretches the bounds of credulity to accept that Barton was twice duped by innocuous-sounding extremist organizations.

Here’s an article on Barton and his theocratic front group, the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools: Historical Revisionism in the NCBCPS Curriculum.