(Texas legislators want to add Bible courses to the public school curriculum. I guess they want to make Texas a redder state if possible.)

In testimony to the Texas House Education Committee last week, the author of HB 1287, Republican Rep. Warren Chisum, revealed an evangelizing interest in the legislation. "If we don't have a moral people, our laws are not sufficient to govern an immoral body of people," he said, according to an editorial in the San Antonio Express-News.

He also said: "I would hope that we get a better-prepared student to go out into the world and understand what they believe, ... how it's [this country] put together, why we are different from some others on this planet.

"The United States doesn't have more resources, but we do better. A lot of it's because of what's written in that book, because we have a moral standard. Not everybody has a moral standard," Chisum added, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

As chair of the chamber's appropriations committee, Chisum is the second most important member of the Texas House. In February he circulated a memo to all his colleagues condemning evolution as a long-secret Jewish religious text (information he obtained from the fixedearth.com website).

Chisum's co-author and fellow Republican, Rep. Leo Berman of Tyler told a local television station he does not believe in the separation of church and state. Reported KLTV:

Representative Leo Berman says, "Today, with Christian symbols being taken out of everything, off our county squares, manger scenes, crosses, I think it's time that we put something back, and give kids who want to study the Old and New Testament an option on campus to actually elect that to study."

"I don't believe there's such a thing as the separation of church and state. In fact, the First Amendment to the Constitution actually calls on the United States Congress to make sure, to ensure that people are allowed to practice their religion," says Berman.

Berman recently gained notoriety by proposing the denial of all government services to the citizen children of undocumented immigrants.