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Rafael Cruz, the right-wing pastor and father of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, told a Texas Senate committee on Tuesday that public schools must be required to teach anti-communist lessons in order to reaffirm what he said is America’s true, Christian heritage.
“Communism needs to undermine the construct of god because government must become your god,” he said, later arguing that atheism and evolution are inherently un-American because they contradict his belief that the United States is a “Christian country.”
Cruz, 85, has been a vocal opponent of communism for decades. He fled Cuba in the 1950s after he was imprisoned and tortured for fighting Fulgencio Batista, a dictator who was once allied with Cuba’s communist party but later oversaw the brutal repression of communists, with aid from the CIA. According to a 2015 book authored by his son, Rafael Cruz initially supported Fidel Castro, but changed his mind after Castro seized power in 1959 and “declared to the world that he was a communist.” Cruz’s role in the Cuban resistance has been disputed by some Cubans who knew him at the time.
In the decades since immigrating, Cruz has been a leading advocate for Christian dominionism, which argues that the Bible commands Christians to have “dominion” over all parts of society in order to bring about the apocalypse. Dominionists and their allies have focused heavily on public schools, arguing that church-state separation is a myth that has been used to obscure the nation’s true, Christian roots — often, they claim, at the behest of “godless” communists intent on destroying America and its churches.
Cruz reiterated many of those arguments in his Tuesday testimony for Senate Bill 24, which would require public schools in the state to teach students in fourth through 12th grade about communist movements and their victims, both in and outside the U.S.
According to the bill, students would learn about the “tactics used by communist movements in the U.S.,” as well as “historical events and atrocities attributable to communist regimes,” like those in Cuba, Latin American nations, and the former Soviet Union. As part of these lessons, instruction must include first-person accounts from “victims of communist regimes.”
Cruz, who was invited by lawmakers to testify in favor of the bill, said that young people are being “brainwashed on the virtues of socialism” through Critical Race Theory (CRT), Diversity or Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and other initiatives that have already been banned in some Texas public institutions by Republican lawmakers. He also argued that “communist professors” have infiltrated colleges across the country, and suggested deporting people who “don’t like it here.”
“In many instances our classrooms are failing us, because they’re following an agenda,” Cruz said. “It is not our agenda. It is a communist agenda that has, like tentacles, immersed itself into our education system. So we need to retrieve our educational system from that evil agenda.”
Cruz’s testimony is the latest push by conservative Christians to infuse more of their religion into public life and codify into law their belief that church-state separation is a “false doctrine.” In recent years, state Republicans have required classrooms to hang donated “In God We Trust” signs; allowed unlicensed religious chaplains to replace mental health counselors in public schools; and approved new curriculum materials that teach the Bible and other religious texts alongside grade-school curriculum.
Those efforts have continued this legislative session, which began with some lawmakers calling for “spiritual warfare” against demonic forces that they say control the Legislature. Last month, Texas Senators approved a major bill that would allow public tax dollars to be redirected to religious and other private schools. And last week, a Texas Senate committee advanced bills that would require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public classrooms and allow districts to set aside optional time for prayer during school hours.
Animated by rising secularism and emboldened by recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, conservative Christians have argued that such legislation is crucial to stemming what they see as a moral decline in America that they trace back to at least the 1960s, when courts began to limit the role of Christianity in public life and schools. Those court decisions came amid broader “Red Scare” fears in America, and prompted major backlash by Christians who argued that their religion was a bulwark against communist influence in the country.
Those fears continue today. SB 24 is one of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s priority bills this session. Its author, Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, said Tuesday that the bill “aims to educate students on the deceptive methods used to spread communistic ideology and highlight the ongoing threats posed by Communism.”
The bill did not get a committee vote on Tuesday, but is co-sponsored by eight of the committee’s 11 members.
Texas’ efforts come close to a year after Florida passed its own law requiring that public schools teach students about the history of communism in the U.S. and “atrocities committed in foreign countries under the guidance of communism.” That bill easily passed the Florida House and Senate, with bipartisan support. Some of the Florida Democrats who opposed the legislation said it was ironic to require schools teach anti-communist lessons at a time when the state was passing laws leading to book bans and restricting lessons on slavery and Black studies.
Lawmakers have also taken action at the federal level. In December, the U.S. House passed legislation that would provide optional educational materials to high schools from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to “warn about the dangers of communism and totalitarianism,” according to a U.S. House education committee news release.
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