Chapter and Verse on Christian Right

* The Times provided a great public service with its Oct. 25 article, “Christian Right Soldiers On in O.C. School Board Races.” Extremist and single-issue candidates are not always willing to reveal their real agendas to the public. They hide their true motives with cliches like “back to basics” and “family values.” They spread disinformation about local school districts. Candidates will say, for example, that test scores are declining when just the opposite is true, test scores are actually going up.

RETTA MULLANEY

Laguna Niguel

* You either don’t get it or you intentionally and quite perfidiously distort the truth. I have firsthand knowledge of the facts being misrepresented in your report.

I am helping two candidates in Fullerton in their campaign. Your labeling them as “Christian right soldiers” is despicably wrong. We have had very many discussions on education and our religious beliefs have never been a part of it. I am a strong believer in evolution. What unites us is our views on the direction of educational theories and practices. We all want not a 180-degree turn from what we have now, but nevertheless a major adjustment of direction.

For example, we want to see more teaching of basic skills like phonics, math computation, higher student expectations in knowledge and behavior, and less experimentation in the form of “new, new math.” We also want to limit bilingual education.

URSZULA OLEKSYN-BAZAN

Fullerton

* You might not think the conservative right candidates running for school boards are a serious threat to your children’s education. Think again.

We’ve all read about the conflicts and frustrations within the Orange Unified School District, where the majority of school board members are conservative “Christian” right. We’ve all heard about the Vista School District in San Diego County. There the conservative “Christian” right majority trustees’ constant aggressions not only affected the children’s education, but placed neighbor against neighbor and resulted in the recall of all conservative right trustees in the school district. What happened in Vista and Orange should be a lesson for all of us.

Do we want school boards that would rather push their back room agendas than provide educational programs to meet the diverse needs of their communities? And if your child doesn’t meet their standards, doesn’t fit into their molds, doesn’t follow their religious and moral beliefs, or needs special services, what will happen to your child?

The rhetoric and the misinformation handed out by these candidates should warn [people] to check further, to ask who is endorsing them, who is financing them, what they are really after. What do they really want to do about public education? Change it? Or destroy it? Are people so unhappy with their school district that they would take a chance and vote for them?

SUZY ELLIOT

Rancho Santa Margarita

* Maybe I’m naive, but aren’t you supposed to engage in objective reporting? Did you have any interest in finding out the facts, or did you just want to whip the voters into a frenzy against those candidates that you label religious right?

If you would have bothered to get the facts, you would have seen that the campaigns [in Fullerton] are all about school issues. Maybe I am mistaken, but don’t we all want our kids to read? Considering that Fullerton’s third-grade reading scores are in the 37th percentile, this would seem to be an important issue during a school board election.

How does that translate to “Religious Right?” You are too busy labeling people who do not fall in line with your liberal bias. Next time you do an article on the religious right, find out who they are. Better yet, define your term first. Then try to honestly evaluate the people that you are trying to label. In other words, make an effort to be objective, a skill that I am afraid you have all lost.

By your inference in this particular article, religious right translates into a wacko religious fanatic who will immediately, when elected, start to implement school prayer in every classroom and Bible studies on every campus. You should be ashamed of yourselves for a piece that was so blatantly manipulative.

LORI SHANEBECK

Fullerton

* The article failed to mention the other type of Christian right “stealth” candidates, the kind who are skirting the issue or flat-out lying about their association with extremists on the far right, such as the ultra-conservative Orange County Educational Alliance.

As teachers, our goal is simple--to help students reach their potential. We have no hidden agenda. We want members on the school board who share this goal; not people who treat us like we are the enemy! When you want advice about law, you go to a lawyer. When you are sick, you go to a doctor. When you want to know what’s going on in the schools, ask a teacher.

CATHY VAN HOUTEN-GERMAN

Placentia

* Voters in Saddleback Valley, Garden Grove, Fullerton or any other school district where the right-wing zealots are attempting to impose their narrowly focused political agenda [should] not let a vocal and highly organized minority impose their views on the community. This is the antithesis of a democracy. The few do not rule the masses! Where were these people when their high school civics teacher explained the founding fathers’ separation of church and state?

DIEDRE GIBSON SEAMAN

Tustin