Commentary: Edelblut’s past helps explain his destructive NH public education policies

In a recent Concord Monitor opinion piece, we summarized the many ways New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut has undermined our public education system. His policies have been extreme, and New Hampshire citizens deserve to know more about what has motivated Edelblut’s actions as commissioner, including his specious accusations against classroom teachers.

Perhaps Edelblut’s radical policy decisions are best explained by his decade-long affiliation with Patrick Henry College (PHC), first as a board member for fundraising and then as chair of PHC’s Business Task Force.

PHC is a four-year college designed for home-schooled students steeped in fundamentalist Christian thought, and it was started by Michael Farris in 2000 as “a forward base camp in the culture war.” Farris began his career opposing the Equal Rights Amendment and defending sodomy laws. Farris is currently president of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a group designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.

Most recently, The New York Times reported Michael Farris played “a central behind-the-scenes role” in the soft-coup lawsuits that tried to overturn the 2020 election, and his ideology was represented on the Capitol steps on Jan. 6, 2021.

Patrick Henry College is profoundly anti-science, offering no majors or minors in any scientific field. Instead, all PHC courses, including biology, teach a literal interpretation of the Bible, and all faculty are chosen “on the basis of their personal adherence to this view.”

PHC promises parents their child will remain a creationist. Students are taught that every single word in the Bible is divine and "inerrant" (i.e., can't be wrong), that Eve literally came from Adam's rib, and that those who do not adopt PHC's faith system will go to Hell and "shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity.” These views have been rejected by the vast majority of Christians, who are able to combine their faith with science.

With a decade of fund-raising leadership from Edelblut, PHC’s long game (like all other authoritarian right-wing Christian groups) is to end our secular pluralist democracy and turn it into a Christian state that is intolerant of cultural diversity, scientific understanding related to evolution, and freedom of religion. In short, they aim to turn the United States into a nation more akin to Putin’s autocratic Russia.

Katherine Stewart warns in her book, "The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism", that: "The Christian nationalists’ affection for Mr. Putin and all things Russian goes much deeper than a tactical alliance aimed at saving souls and defeating "homosexuals" and "gender ideology." At the core of the attraction lies a shared political vision. America’s Christian nationalists have not overlooked Putin’s authoritarian style of government; they have embraced it as an ideal" (p. 272).

According to Stewart, the immediate goal of Christian theocrats is to undermine public education through school privatization efforts (like vouchers) and to access public taxpayer monies for religious schools through court rulings that tear down church/state separation.

These efforts will likely be supported by the Supreme Court this summer when they rule in Carson v. Makin, a case which, according to Slate, threatens to compel “individuals of every faith to help finance the indoctrination of children by conservative Christians to discriminate against LGBTQ people, women, religious minorities, and liberal Christians. This pedagogy is so extreme, so divisive and fanatical, that it makes critical race theory look like Blue’s Clues.”

Edelblut certainly did not distance himself from elements of Patrick Henry College’s belief system when questioned by the Executive Council back in 2016. In that interview, Edelblut refused to explain what he’d do, as commissioner, if biology teachers taught "creationism on par with evolution in their life sciences curriculum."

He would also not offer an answer when asked how, as the state's educational leader, he could continue to “believe, and act upon the belief, that women are subservient to men."

He was also evasive about his views on gay and transgender "conversion therapy," a "treatment" thoroughly discredited by every major medical, psychological, social service, and mainstream religious organization in the country.

Edelblut left much doubt regarding his commitment to keeping creationism out of science classes, he failed to affirm that all people are created equal, and he left questions whether religious ideology should remain separate from government policy. He certainly did not communicate uncompromising support for public education.

Given his undermining of public education for the past five years, Edelblut should be pressed to provide more fulsome answers to these 2016 Executive Council questions, and he should explain his current association with Michael Farris and Patrick Henry College, answering if this association has influenced his policy decisions as commissioner.

What a tragic and dangerous irony that a radical school privatizer, intent on undermining public education, is now running New Hampshire’s education system.

More: NH education chief Frank Edelblut assailed for 'bigotry.' He sees family 'value system.'

Libertarians and other "small government" advocates must rethink their alliance with Edelblut, who has closely associated himself with, and fundraised for, authoritarian Christians, who eagerly await the day enough power has been amassed to ban a panoply of freedoms achieved in the West through liberal constitutional democracies.

Gov. Chris Sununu must explain why he gave Edelblut another four-year term to further undermine morale and confidence in our community-owned and operated public schools that serve 89% of New Hampshire children.

Joe Onosko is a University of New Hampshire professor emeritus, and Jeff Frenkiewich is a Milford Middle School social studies teacher and UNH adjunct professor. The views expressed represent those of the authors, not UNH or Milford School District.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Commentary: Edelblut has long history undermining public education