Bobby Jindal campaign manager Timmy "authority structure" Teepell has been a member of the far right Council for National Policy since at least 1998. The CNP was founded by John Birch Society Texas billionaires, dominionists like Tim LeHaye, and includes former KKK leaders like Richard Shoff. (Read the linked links about dominionists if you haven't already done so.)
Last year, Bobby Jindal went on a speaking tour with GOP dominionist pastor Dan Barton. Barton writes and teaches false history about church/state separation myths based on spliced quotes from founding fathers that are often removed from context. You can listen to Jindal lavish extreme praise for Barton's "data" in this interview on Barton's "Wallbuilders" show from 10/18/06. The Rhodes Scholar and future Governor is overwhelmed with the "powerful" case Barton makes, and believes that "true" history has been scrubbed from our children's history books due to political correctness.
Here's a very small sampling of Barton's bad faith historical revisionism with which Jindal is so impressed.
In the first Gubernatorial debate, Jindal provided an opening for his opponents when he slyly included creationist talking points in his (non) answer about teaching the "Intelligent Design" Trojan horse in Louisiana schools. While Jindal's opponents didn't properly call him on it, The Baton Rouge Advocate, to its great credit, will not tolerate such antiscience. From 10/04 the Advocate editorial page (H/T Schroeder):
Intelligent design is a fraud.
Like the unsubstantiated claim of creationism, which a state law sought to shoehorn into school curricula in the 1980s, it is a way to introduce the Bible story of creation where it does not belong. Intelligent design is so transparently without substance that it does not belong in private school classrooms, either, but that is a matter for private schools to decide.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 overturned the Louisiana “creation science” law as an intrusion of religious belief into public schools.
That was a wise decision.
While we have the highest respect for Brown University, Jindal’s undergraduate biology degree from there does not represent an intellectual basis for overturning the considered opinion of science about the evolution of life on Earth.
The “best science” Jindal espouses does not include intelligent design.
Jindal’s position, to the extent we can discern it, is that intelligent design is not beyond the pale of discussion in the classroom.
His dodge about local school boards is just that; it does not explain what he would do if some of his more-zealous supporters propose a state mandate for intelligent design. As governor, Jindal would have to make a judgment about that bill in the Legislature, or be involved in a debate on the issue within the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
In Louisiana, candidates for governor always declare that the state should require this or that. But if the issue is controversial, the candidates tend to discover the importance of school boards’ autonomy.
The question about intelligent design in the LPB forum was directed at Jindal, but every candidate should state his position on this matter.
It’s relevant. A governor has three appointments to the policy-setting BESE. If a willingness to countenance intelligent design is to be a standard for those appointments, Louisiana would be setting itself up to be a national embarrassment. Again.
I'm not trying to be alarmist here, but there's something very disturbing and deceptive about Jindal's (utterly sincere?) alliance with Barton and his ties to the CNP through campaign manager Timmy Teepell. A biology major who subscribes to creationism, and a Rhodes scholar who praises the historical sense of charlatan Dan Barton is mere hours away from being elected Governor.
Also, I believe Teepell and national GOP forces are to blame for Jindal's puzzling pattern of lightly campaigning in SE LA, and ignoring (if not insulting) African-American voters.
---
Update: Then there's this:
The [gubernatorial] candidates also differ on gay rights, where Jindal is the only candidate who said he would not renew a 2004 executive order by Blanco barring state agencies and outside contractors from discriminating in their hiring practices on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, political affiliation or disabilities.
