By: V4 Agency
Former US Attorney General William Barr has warned that the increasingly militant and radical secular-progressive climate in the state-run education system is posing a threat to religious freedom in America.
In a recent acceptance speech at the awards ceremony of the Alliance Defending Freedom Conference, former US Attorny General William Barr issued a stark warning about what is happening inside the country’s public education system and how Americans can take action against the spread of extremism in schools.
AG Barr warned that “the greatest threat to religious liberty in America today” is the “increasingly militant and extreme secular-progressive climate in our state-run educational system.” Bar maintains that many are only concerned with the negative impact the spread of extremism in the country has on the national unity of the US.
According to the former attorney general, the biggest threat to religious freedom is that theories of radical left-wing progressivity and liberalism are gaining ground and being promulgated in schools. Barr gave two examples of this in the public education system.
One of the examples of spreading extreme views took place in early 2021, when students in Iowa’s public schools from kindergarten to high school were taught about transgenderism and homosexuality during a week dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement. Children were distributed coloring books, which contained a page teaching that everyone can choose whether they are a girl or a boy, or possibly both, or neither.
Regarding the example above, Barr said, “Now, one thing we know, this is not established science, it is a moral, psychological, and metaphysical dogma of the new progressive orthodoxy. In fact, until recently, virtually no one in America had heard of these radical notions. Yet now they are thoroughly institutionalized in many public schools, and in some states, students are permitted to select new genders without the consent of their parents.”
Another example, which Barr says supports the rapid spread of extremism within the education system, is that “in the absence of a statewide mandate, curriculum are frequently adopted in particular school districts. These new laws often prohibit opt-outs for parents.” In Orange County, California, for example, the Board of Education issued an opinion that, “parents who disagree with the instructional materials related to gender, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation, may not excuse their children from this instruction.”