Louisiana Voucher School Textbooks: "Hippies Immoral, Dirty Worshippers of Satan"

Every time we stick up for land of Hickory Wind and Spanish Moss, why does stuff like this have to happen? A Louisiana school part of Gov. Bobby Jindal's controversial school voucher program is using an eighth-grade history textbook describing "hippies" as "immoral" bath-resistant, drug-addled worshippers of Satan. Come. On. At most, that's only half-correct. 

An unidentified Louisiana school is reportedly using the textbook, "America: Land I Love," which features a section about the widespread counterculture of the 1960s that describes the period thusly:

"Many young people turned to drugs and immoral lifestyles; these youth became known as hippies. They went without bathing, wore dirty, ragged, unconventional clothing, and deliberately broke all codes of politeness or manners. Rock music played an important part in the hippie movement and had great influence over the hippies. Many of the rock musicians they followed belonged to Eastern religious cults or practiced Satan worship."

It's unclear exactly what Louisiana school the textbook came from; the passage was first published by John Aravosis at AmericaBlog, who said that "a friend" sent him a picture of the counterculture section. 

Gov. Jindal's polarizing school voucher program, which uses state tax dollars to send low income and middle-income students to - often religious based - private schools that provide groundbreaking interpretations of "knowledge" via frequently inaccurate or controversial textbooks, is still being debated in courts after it was ruled unconstitutional last year.

Sadly, this is far from the first time we've been privy to such nuggets of wisdom from Louisiana's voucher school textbooks. Here's a few more tasty learnin' morsels Mother Jones dug up last year:

"A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well."- United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991.

"[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."- United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001.

Just so we've all got this math straight, "hippies" = amoral heathens ushering in the downfall of civilization; KKK/slave holders = minorities as unfairly maligned by history books as the black plague. Got that?

Gov. Jindal was still trying to defend the controversial voucher program in February. 

"To oppose school choice is to put the wishes of the adults who control the status quo ahead of the needs of our children," Jindal said, according to Yahoo News. "To oppose school choice is to oppose equal opportunity."

To that, we reply with more quotes from Louisiana voucher school textbooks: "Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time."

P.S. "God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ."