By Barbara Forrest

There are times when the irony of life is so thick that one has to just stand back and marvel at it. Now is one of those times in Louisiana. June 25, 2010, marked exactly two years to the day since Gov. Bobby Jindal signed the creationist Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA). Now, with coastal wildlife trapped and dying in sludge, with the human beings of the Gulf Coast facing the loss of culture, livelihoods, and our beautiful wetlands — courtesy of BP — Gov. Jindal felt called to set aside June 27 as an official day of prayer for divine assistance in “persevering” through this mess — and to post the call to prayer on his official state website. In 2008, his constituents couldn’t even get him to acknowledge the letters he got from scientists and citizens who asked him to veto the LSEA. But now, with the Gulf of Mexico hemorrhaging oil, he was only too happy to sign an official proclamation declaring a “Statewide Day of Prayer for Perseverance Through Oil Spill Crisis” [pdf]. The irony of this is as thick as the oil in the Gulf.

UPDATE, June 29, 2010: Hat tip to Bill Berkowitz in his guest commentary for Buzzflash.com, “Praying Away the Oil, BP’s Oil-Spewing Disaster: It’s God’s Message to America, Conservative Christian Evangelicals Say.” Berkowitz seems to have found the explanation for the official prayer vigil on June 27 at Charisma Magazine‘s News Online: “Governors Declare Day of Prayer for Gulf Spill.” The Charisma article confirms that David Barton drafted the basic prayer proclamation, which the governors of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi could adapt for their states. It also quotes Cindy Jacobs, co-founder of the U.S. Reformation Prayer Network, who has been coordinating prayer efforts. Jacobs’ belief about the cause of the oil spill seems to shed some light on Gene Mills’ strange assessment (see below) of the oil gusher as the “second spiritual assault” on New Orleans:

Jacobs believes the oil spill is more than a natural disaster but partly the result of greed, debauchery on the beaches, poor environmental stewardship and a lack of U.S. support for Israel—all issues her network has been repenting of since the leak began.

‘Whenever there’s violent weather or some things like this, you have to ask if it’s just a natural disaster or if you’re reaping something that’s been sown,’ she said. ‘We feel this is a cumulative thing.’

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The official praying actually started on Monday, June 21, in the Memorial Hall (front lobby) of the Louisiana State Capitol, as we are informed by the Louisiana Family Forum, which distributed the governor’s official proclamation [pdf]. (Are we surprised?) According to the LFF’s June 22, 2010, Family Facts newsletter, “lawmakers, pastors, and intercessors joined Representative Regina Barrow, Senator Sharon Broome, and Governor Bobby Jindal  for a Prayer Vigil concerning the Deepwater Horizon Oil Explosion.” Also prominently featured in the LFF’s newsletter is a picture of Jindal undergoing the laying on of hands (the hands are unidentified). The Family Facts article also notes that “Governor Jindal read Psalms 146.” (See the LFF’s YouTube video of the 2007 pre-inaugural Christmas gala that LFF threw for him, at which he likewise underwent the laying on of hands in front of hundreds of attendees, with Rev. Mills presiding [at 2:17].)

It is ironic that Jindal could not squeeze into his schedule even one personal response to the Louisiana citizens, scientists, and teachers who implored him to protect the teaching of science in the state’s public schools. Yet he always seems to be available for the LFF’s political-religious photo ops, such as its 2009 Annual Legislative Awards Banquet, at which the LFF gives awards to Louisiana legislators who vote their way. So his finding room in his schedule for the prayer photo op is entirely typical of the way Jindal allots his gubernatorial time. The LFF asks, and the LFF receives. (See the Baton Rouge Advocate’s excellent June 28 editorial, “Bible Frauds on the March,” about the LFF’s power over the Louisiana legislature.)

The fact that people would turn to prayer is not surprising. Devout residents all along the Gulf Coast are understandably turning to anything they think will help. A good deal of prayer has been prompted in Louisiana in recent years by the well-known catastrophes that have blown in from the Gulf of Mexico. When people face losing everything they love, prayer is a source of hope and comfort. However, the irony of our anti-science governor signing a prayer proclamation when he would not sign his name to protect the teaching of science is a bit much. Yet it is to be expected in light of the fact that Jindal has thrown in lock, stock, and barrel with the extreme Religious Right. Vetoing the LSEA in 2008 would have meant breaking ranks with Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) director Rev. Gene Mills, who — being as much a political operative as a man of the cloth — is one of Jindal’s unofficial right-hand men. Mills orchestrated the passage of the LSEA. (See “Holy Warriors,” Jeremy Alford’s informative May 26, 2010, story on Mills and the LFF.)

As it turns out — unsurprisingly — Mills also announced that he orchestrated the drafting of the prayer proclamation (which is posted on the governor’s official website). He says that Louisianians have not prayed enough about the oil catastrophe. In his June 24, 2010, e-mail to LFF supporters, he observed that despite the fact that “America has assembled the brightest minds, the newest technology and America’s finest for 65 consecutive days to seal this breach in the Gulf of Mexico,” we have “failed to . . . corporately ‘pause and pray’ and admit that our efforts are futile without the assistance of the Almighty!” So an official proclamation from the governor was needed. (Note the additional irony of the double-entendre in Mills’s exhortation that Louisianians must “corporately” pray that God will help us get rid of BP’s oily deluge.) In a remark aimed directly at other ministers, Mills divulges that he had help in drafting the proclamation:

Pastors, I requested that Governor Jindal initiate this call and have been assisted by David Barton of Wallbuilders, Tony Perkins of Family Research Council and others in crafting the proclamation and implementing its directive.

Most readers have heard of Tony Perkins, a former Louisiana state legislator who helped found the LFF and now wages nation-wide culture war from Washington, DC, as head of the Family Research Council. (Perkins pulled some creationist shenanigans of his own during his time in the legislature.) But David Barton, a Republican political operative in Texas who poses as a historian, is less recognizable in Louisiana. Barton founded Wallbuilders, an organization devoted to “presenting America’s forgotten history and heroes with an emphasis on our moral, religious, and constitutional heritage” — in other words, he spreads Religious Right propaganda about the Founding Fathers. (Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State exposed Barton’s pseudo-scholarship almost twenty years ago. See “Sects, Lies and Videotape: David Barton’s Distorted History.”)

Barton was one of the “expert” reviewers whom the far-right contingent of the Texas Board of Education selected to screw up the Texas history standards earlier this year. (Boston points out Barton’s “credentials” for this task: “Barton earned a bachelor’s degree in ‘Christian Education’ from Oral Roberts University in 1976 and later taught math and science at a fundamentalist Christian school founded by his father.” See also the extensive information on Barton at Texas Freedom Network’s excellent TFN Insider blog.)

It turns out that Barton is also a buddy of Bobby Jindal. He accompanied Jindal on a campaign tour of Baptist churches in North Louisiana in October 2006, after which Jindal was a guest (two days in a row) on Barton’s Wallbuilders Live! radio program. Jindal gushed to the audience about what a knowledgeable historian Barton is. (See “Governor Jindal’s Friends in Low Places” here.) So Jindal reveals that he is not only anti-science but — through his chummy association with Barton — anti-history as well. Mills’ partnering with Barton on the Louisiana prayer proclamation simply continues the close working relationship that exists among Jindal, Barton, Perkins, and Mills himself.

So Rev. Mills pulled together his divinely inspired effort to protect the Gulf Coast. Actually, ten days after the rig explosion, in his April 30, 2010, End of Week newsletter, he had already issued a call to prayer — which included a weird, ambiguous comment about a “spiritual assault” on New Orleans:

It is not coincidental that this event occurred at precisely the point Katrina tracked and struck its destructive blow to New Orleans. This second spiritual assault warrants that we “Cry Out for success in the Gulf!” [Katrina link is Mills'.]

Next, in a call for fasting as well, he provided a prayer, which, among other things, asked God to inflict the oil on someone else (look out Cuba!):

As we are led by the Holy Spirit, let us pray…

• For God’s hand upon His creation, the land, the sea, and the winds. “Father, direct and command prevailing winds to move southward. We call forth the green grass of our wetlands to thrive and flourish!” [underlining added]

Now for the final irony: Almost two months later, in his June 4 End of Week newsletter, “Drills, Spills, and Bills” (in which he updates readers on his lobbying successes at the Capitol), Mills is defending BP against the prospect of prosecution. Referring indirectly to the Obama administration’s announcement that there will be a criminal investigation, he makes no mention of the fact that eleven human beings — husbands, dads, sons, brothers, buddies — are dead because of BP — twelve if you count the recent, tragic suicide of Alabama fisherman Allen “Rookie” Kruse. And domestic violence calls have tripled in beautiful little Bayou La Batre, Alabama. (Family values, anyone?) But Mills is concerned about BP’s stock ratings:

[Obama's] policy decisions to close drilling and proceed with criminal investigations appear counter-intuitive, calculated, and politically theatrical. BP’s stock fell dramatically within minutes of the criminal investigation announcement! How will Louisiana subrogate against an [sic] bankrupt BP?

Obama has repeatedly charged BP with withholding information… does he really expect they will suddenly be forthcoming with all the latest intelligence now that their every word and action may be used against them in Congressional Investigation?  This is all a sad show for the media and the American people to avoid culpability. May God have mercy on our coast!

There isn’t much else to say after this revelation, is there? Except to recall — once again — that, under the governorship of Bobby Jindal, Gene Mills is calling the shots on Louisiana science education policy. Have mercy, indeed.

UPDATE 7.10.09: Readers can see Barton’s “expert” review of the Texas social studies standards, as well as those of the other reviewers, here. Barton does not believe that scientist Carl Sagan was of sufficient scientific stature to be included among the scientists about whom Texas students should learn:

In Grade 5 (b)(24)(A), there are certainly many more notable scientists than Carl Sagan – such as Wernher von Braun, Matthew Maury, Joseph Henry, Maria Mitchell, David Rittenhouse, etc.

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Supporters of science education both in Louisiana and around the country have scratched their heads in perplexity, trying to figure out how Gov. Bobby Jindal, who earned an undergraduate degree in biology at Brown University, one of the country’s finest Ivy League schools, could sign the creationist Louisiana Science Education Act [pdf]. They wonder how he can support the teaching of intelligent design, a form of creationism which has been thoroughly discredited by competent scientists and scholars. Only the governor can definitively answer this question. But if there is any truth in the old adage, “You are judged by the company you keep,” knowing something about the people with whom the governor keeps company offers at least partial insight into why he signed Louisiana’s creationism bill last year. David Barton is one of those people. Who is David Barton?

Barton is a friend of Gov. Jindal. According to Rev. Gene Mills, executive director of the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), also a Jindal ally, Barton was Jindal’s guest at a January 14, 2008, inaugural prayer breakfast for Jindal in which the LFF  participated. Mills announced the event in his January 3, 2008, “End of Week” e-newsletter, and the announcement was also carried in the January 8, 2008, LFF’s Family Facts newsletter:

Louisiana Family Forum will take part in an Inaugural Prayer Breakfast on Monday, January 14th.  . . .

The event will feature Special Guest, Governor-Elect Bobby Jindal, who will be accompanied by Historian David Barton, Texas’ Governor Rick Perry and Dr. Laurence White.

Note that Mills calls Barton a historian. Keep this in mind . . . and keep reading.

Gov. Jindal also appeared twice on Barton’s Wallbuilders Live radio program on October 18 & 19, 2006, during which he praised Barton’s knowledge of the history of America’s founding. This was one week after Jindal’s tour of North Louisiana churches during his gubernatorial campaign — a tour on which he was accompanied by Barton. Jindal’s church tour with Barton was reported at the time by Frederick Clarkson, a veteran journalist who has documented the development of the Religious Right for many years.

Barton poses as a historian with expertise in the history of the Founding Fathers. Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State has been writing about him for years. Boston’s latest piece about him, “Texas Tall Tale,” is the cover story of the current issue of Church & State, AU’s monthly magazine. According to Boston, Barton is “a Religious Right propagandist who for years has pushed a fundamentalist ‘Christian nation’ view of American history.”

From his base in Aledo, a town of about 2,000 just west of Fort Worth, Barton runs an outfit called WallBuilders that issues a steady stream of books, videos, DVDs, pamphlets and other materials designed to ‘prove’ that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation. Barton argues that American law should be based on the Bible (or, more accurately, his fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible) and says church-state separation was never intended by our Founders.

According to his Wallbuilders.com website, Barton leads private “Spiritual Heritage” tours of the United States Capitol in Washington, DC, exclusively for “pastors and ministry leaders,” arranging “exclusive briefing sessions with some of the top Christian Senators and Representatives now serving in Congress.” He also promotes creationism on his website. But he has no credentials in either history or science, as Boston points out.

His official bio on the WallBuilders Web site says nothing about Barton’s educational background, probably for good reason: It’s not relevant to what he’s doing. Barton earned a bachelor’s degree in ‘Christian Education’ from Oral Roberts University in 1976 and later taught math and science at a fundamentalist Christian school founded by his father, pastor of Aledo Christian Center.

The Texas Freedom Network echoes Boston’s assessment of Barton’s academic “credentials”:

Barton’s college degree is in religious education, not history or another field in the social sciences. He works for no institution of higher education. He’s simply a smooth-talking political hack who distorts history in the service of an ideological agenda.

The really bad news is that Barton is targeting public schools with his propaganda:

Barton is also busy trying to slip his perspective into public schools in other ways. He is active in the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, a North Carolina group that works to persuade public schools to adopt a fundamentalist-oriented Bible curriculum under the guise of teaching ‘about’ religion. Barton serves on the organization’s advisory board, alongside several other Religious Right figures.

[Note: Darrell White of the Louisiana Family Forum also serves on the NCBCPS board.]

But it gets worse — Barton himself is among the most extreme members of the Religious Right. He is on the Board of Directors of the Providence Foundation, which, Boston says, “poses as a benign group dedicated to promoting a ‘biblical worldview.’ In fact, the organization seems to be aligned with Christian Reconstructionism, an ultra-fundamentalist theology that seeks to scrap democracy and impose a harsh Old Testament regime on modern-day America.” Christian Reconstructionists seek to impose a strict “biblical worldview” on all aspects of American life — whether their fellow Americans like or it not. (See Frederick Clarkson’s articles about Christian Reconstructionism for PublicEye.org.)

Barton also sells books, CDs, DVDs, etc., from his online store. But accuracy has never been his concern. Boston himself analyzed historical claims that Barton made in a videotape entitled “America’s Godly Heritage,” which “summarized Barton’s arguments as outlined in his self-published 1989 book The Myth of Separation.” The book’s title reflects Barton’s false contention that the separation of church and state is a myth and that it was never intended by the Founding Fathers. Boston catalogues Barton’s errors and distortions in two articles entitled “Sects, Lies and Videotape: David Barton’s Distorted History” and “David Barton: Master of Myth and Misinformation.”

But now the story gets much worse — Barton has been appointed by his supporters on the Texas Board of Education to serve on a panel of expert reviewers charged with reviewing the Texas social studies standards. Boston reports on this in “Texas Tall Tale“:

When the Texas State Board of Education issued a list of proposed ‘experts’ to sit on a social studies curriculum panel, one name immediately leaped out to defenders of church-state separation: David Barton.

The panel is supposed to consist of academics and others with specialized knowledge to assist the board in drafting new social studies standards for public schools across the state. The selection of Barton, a Religious Right propagandist who for years has pushed a fundamentalist ‘Christian nation’ view of American history, is a sure sign that trouble lurks ahead.

Concerned pro-science activists will recognize the Texas BOE’s appointment of Barton to the panel of reviewers for the social studies standards as a replay of the board’s appointment of three creationists to the panel of experts charged with reviewing the state’s science standards earlier this year. (See the press release by the excellent Texas Freedom Network. See TFN’s postings about Barton here and here.) One of those creationists was Stephen C. Meyer, director of the Discovery Institute’s creationist Center for Science and Culture. As chronicled on this website, the Discovery Institute played a major role in the drafting and passage of the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act [pdf], which allows public school science teachers to use supplemental materials that undermine “evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”

Apparently, Barton also has his finger in the anti-global warming pie, as Boston reports:

Amazingly, it looks like Barton is branching out into other fields – areas where, like history, he has no legitimate credentials. On June 7, 2007, Barton testified before the U.S. Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, criticizing global warming and posing as an expert on how evangelicals view that issue.

Interested readers can read Barton’s committee testimony, where he also managed to take a swipe at evolution. Note Barton’s use of scare quotes around “science”:

For more than a century, scientists have asserted unaided materialistic evolution — that God had no part in the appearance of man. Yet, despite a century of this aggressive ‘scientific’ indoctrination, today only 12-18 percent of the nation accepts that position; some eighty percent do not believe what ‘science’ avows on this issue.

Interested readers can read all of Boston’s fine article for themselves. They can also google David Barton for additional information about this self-styled — but phony — “expert” . . . who is now in a position to get nonsense inserted into the Texas social standards as creationists managed to do in the science standards.

The fundamental question here is why Gov. Jindal would hobnob with someone like Barton. Someone should ask him.