Ohio Republicans just introduced a bill to insert Christianity into public schools. LGBTQ+ communities should be alarmed.

Ohio Christian nationalists just proposed a bill that would codify an unexamined, revisionist, “positive” view of Christianity that not only leaves LGBTQIA+ people out of the conversation, it sidesteps the First Amendment to allow for teaching the history of American Christianity.

The bill, Ohio House Bill 486 (HB 486) or the “Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act,” states that “The teaching of the historical, positive impact of religion on American history is consistent with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. An accurate and historical account of the influence of Christianity on the freedom and liberties ingrained in our culture is imperative to reducing ignorance of American history, hate and violence within our society.” 

Every mention of “religion” in HB 486 should be read as “Christianity.” In the bill’s long list of topics that can be taught in public schools (25 in all!), there are zero references to any religion other than Christianity.

Perhaps the most concerning part of the bill—and the pool of candidates for that honor is a crowded field—is how uncritical and unexamined the presentation of Christianity is. 

For example, one point reads, “How religious influence shaped civil rights and the civil rights movement through men like Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others.” 

The theology of Dr. King was liberative. The God we consistently encounter in the Bible is not a God who sits on the sidelines and is definitely not a God who supports empires, nations and the powerful. God shows up throughout scripture squarely on the side of the marginalized and the oppressed. 

As a preacher, pastor and theologian I could present a full argument for liberation theology’s view of God, which Dr. King also preached, but the writers of HB 486 have done something here that deserves more time. They’ve divorced these leaders from their context and in doing so have rewritten American Christian history and Christian theology in the process.

Deeply embedded in the history of the United States is the appropriation of Christian doctrine to keep the powerful and the wealthy in power and to further oppress the marginalized. We might not have needed a civil rights movement had it not been that generations of Christian pastors and supposedly Christian leaders used the Bible to support slavery and later the oppression of all people of color. 

Similarly, those leaders throughout history have cherry-picked the Bible to deny women the right to vote and to restrict their bodily autonomy, to support the forced removal of indigenous people, to restrict and marginalize LGBTQIA+ people, even to support the deportation of immigrants where the Bible is very clear that one is not to oppress immigrants and strangers (see Leviticus 19:33-34).

It’s not surprising that a Christian nationalist bill would not only leave out other religions, but also leave out the queer community. You’d be forgiven for being excited that we’re left out for once. But for all its well-documented queerphobic rhetoric and advocacy, Christianity has always been queer and the LGBTQIA+ community and people sharing our identities during other parts of history have stood in significant moments of Christian history. Evangelical Christian nationalists love to cite the King James Version of the Bible, usually without recognizing that King James himself was well known during his life to have male sexual partners. He is only one example among a religion that continues to platform both openly queer and closeted clergy and leaders.

HB 486 is problematic on numerous levels. It smashes the wall between church and state. It erases the contributions of non-Christians throughout history. It presents a largely revised and uncritical approach to Christianity in the United States while advancing tired tropes that are neither accurate nor particularly convincing. There are better ways to teach American history and the religions involved in its long history.

Ohio conservatives, do you want to do this the right way? Do you want to engage in the process of education and historical interpretation in transparency and honesty? We can and should discuss how religion and faith have impacted our nation, but that conversation must involve all religions as well as both the ways we’ve got it right and the times we used our faith to promote historical sins. We also must wrestle with the ongoing legacy of those sins. Neither the United States nor American Christianity is perfect, but we should be brave enough to learn from the errors as we learn from the successes. 🔥

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