Mocked in movie, former ed board member compares criticism to "pre-Holocaust Germany"

DALLAS -- Mocked in a new documentary about Texas textbooks and the Texas State Board of Education, former board member Cynthia Dunbar accused critics of the controversial board of "discrimination" against religious views like in "pre-Holocaust Germany."

In a panel discussion Sunday night after the Texas premiere of The Revisionaries, a new documentary on how the social conservative board majority has influenced American science and history textbooks, Dunbar said board members who opposed teaching "weaknesses" of evolution theory were committing "viewpoint discrimination."

Dunbar is one of several board members featured in the documentary, which "stars" former board Chairman Don McLeroy and his "young-Earth" view of creation, including his belief that dinosaurs were alongside other animals aboard Noah's Ark.

The documentary revisits the board's 2010 debate over teaching evolution.

Dunbar said even though "experts" oppose discussing other views as science, "that's what they talked about in pre-Holocaust Germany as well." She added that "making us a homogenous society that has [only] one ideology that's acceptable is not what this society was based upon."

Dunbar, a Republican from Richmond in Fort Bend County, has said she believes public schools are unconstitutional. She served on the board from 2007 to 2011.

In 2008, she predicted that terrorists "with whom [President Barack] Obama truly sympathizes" would attempt to "take down" America.

Fresh off its Saturday premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, (photo above of McLeroy and filmmaker Scott Thurman from Twitter), The Revisionaries was featured at the Dallas International Film Festival. The movie was originally a graduate project for Thurman, a University of North Texas film student.

Thurman, 31, wept when he talked about McLeroy, calling him a "warm and kind" man who cooperated completely. McLeroy is scheduled to be a guest on The Colbert Report Tuesday night, Thurman said.

Among other guests Sunday was board member Thomas Ratliff, a Mount Pleasant Republican seen in the movie defeating McLeroy.

-- Bud Kennedy

Comments

[Jack Burton]

Wow!

Reading this article and the viewpoints of the players involved sounds like some sort of twisted parody of society and our leadership