TNGOP Still Lying to Tennessee Christians

Recently I was alerted by a horrified co-worker that the Bredesen Administration was nullifying every diploma issued by a Christian school in Tennessee and firing every police officer, firefighter, and daycare worker that had one.

Wow.  You’ve got to have a high level of right-wing paranoid delusion to bite on a lie that outrageous.

I spent a few seconds looking up the facts (something the co-worker hadn’t).  It turns out that one police officer in Roane County was recently notified that since his high school was unaccredited, he’d have to take the GED in order to continue working for the police department.  They gave the officer one month to comply.

The officer’s high school happened to be a fundamentalist Christian one -- but that’s irrelevant to the story.  The high school was unaccredited.  The state doesn’t acknowledge diplomas from unaccredited high schools, religious or not.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.  Unaccredited is unaccredited.  Who cares if it’s a religious school or not?

The TNGOP, for one.  And they care so much that they’re willing to lie to your face about it.  From their new press release:

Last year the Department of Education began declaring that diplomas from home schools and church-related schools were invalid for employment as a police officer, day-care [sic] worker, firefighter or other professions for which state law requires a high school diploma.

If that were true, every police officer who attended a Catholic school would have a sure-fire lawsuit against the State -- and the ACLU would be first in line to help them out.

But it’s not true.  The TNGOP left out a critical word.  It should read, “diplomas from UNACCREDITED schools.”  Without it, the sentence is a lie. 

Instead, the TNGOP intentionally left out the most important word and added in a few completely irrelevant words -- "home” and “church-related.”  Why?  To manipulate you, of course.  To bait you.  To fool you into outrage over a completely manufactured controversy.

I don’t care if you want to go to unaccredited high school or not.  Knock yourself out.  But if you do, you’re going to need a GED to be a cop.  Your religion has nothing to do  with it.

…or it shouldn’t anyway.  But Rep. Mike Bell (R-Panderville) is pushing legislation to get special rules for unaccredited Christian schools so their diplomas count while unaccredited non-religious schools don’t.  I’m not sure that’s Constitutional, but I’m pretty sure that’s stupid.

- Calvin Rye