Anti-Gay, Pro-Creationism Birther Could Change America’s Textbooks

A woman who could determine the nation’s textbook curriculum believes the Civil War was not caused by slavery, Barack Obama is a former gay Arab prostitute, and gays are abominations.

Mary Lou Bruner is running for an open seat on the Texas State Board of Education. On Tuesday came within two percentage points of an outright win. Now she’ll face a run-off election against Kevin Ellis, a chiropractor, but her eventual victory looks all but assured.

The board picks curriculum and textbooks for Texas’s schools and because of Texas’s outsized purchasing power, its decisions can influence publishers whose materials are used in several other states.