Welcome to Ethics Daily.com!: "Hinkle said the public schools were in the beginning “thoroughly Christian.” Southern Baptists supported public education that emphasized “non-denominational Protestantism.” This arrangement, supplemented by Sunday school stressing particular doctrines of the various denominations, “proved satisfactory to Protestants and precluded the need for private schools,” Hinkle said.

But that all changed in the last half century, Hinkle wrote in a 3,200-word editorial blaming Southern Baptists for “50 years of sinful apathy” concerning the decline of public schools.

Hinkle blamed the National Education Association teachers’ union for pushing a “liberal, socialist” agenda, the U.S. Department of Education for removing schools from local control and federal courts for imposing the separation of church and state.

One little thing that is often ignored in this debate is the rest of the historical context of both public schools and the increased federal and judicial presence in local schools. For the creation, Baptists supported public education because it was not Catholic, and they welcomed a more secularized education setting. Now, however, that doesn't meet their purpose. Second, the increased federal presence also occurred because of a little thing called "civil rights" and the critics of federal oversight like to omit that. Absent a strong federal presence, we could easily have segregated schools and public places.

He specifically criticized the NEA-backed “values clarification” for promoting moral relativism.

“I am often perceived as being blunt with my opinions, so let me reinforce that perception,” Hinkle wrote. “The notion that truth is relative is straight from the pit of hell for it mocks the ultimate absolute Truth--Jehovah God and His inerrant, infallible Word.”

I like this too. I have heard for years about relative morality, and the secular humanists like myself who supposedly operate that way. The alternative, apparently, are fundamentalist Christians who address the truth of an issue regardless of how it impacts them. Right. Let me just say that I am unimpressed with that argument. I have watched conservative Christians oppose Clinton for one reason, then support Bush for a similar reason. I have watched them make excuses for greed and excess, while at the same time chastising the sexual sinners without compassion.

Hinkle also blamed advocates of gay-rights and sex education for “insidious indoctrination” to “a host of things” once thought of as unmentionable."

Yeah, like sex. Or like two loving women trying to make a life together.