A new school year in Texas means a rollout of the state’s plan to utilize the Bible in public schools. It’s a move that has earned criticism from liberals and advocates of church and state, who claim the inclusion of mandatory Bible passages violates the establishment clause. Texas has made several moves recently that critics have called “Christian nationalism,” including requiring the 10 Commandments to be displayed in public schools and allowing chaplains to counsel students. However, recent clips of James Talarico, the Democrat Texas state representative and U.S. Senate hopeful, criticizing the use of Bible curriculum in schools as “propaganda” has earned him his own criticism.

The resurfaced clip comes from 2025 when Talarico was speaking at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. During his talk, the Senate candidate fielded a question about his fight against Christian Nationalism in Texas. Talarico cited what he called a particularly “insidious” legislation, where he claimed children would be taught to read the Bible as historical fact. “”It was a new state curriculum that would teach Christian Bible stories as historical fact, as the only truth to our youngest students, and, I mean, kindergarten, first graders. These are kids who aren’t able to think for themselves yet. They haven’t formed their own worldviews,” he said. He went on to say that such legislation is an attempt to “push propaganda, to push indoctrination on those youngest students is deeply immoral and should trouble all of us.”

Talarico is a former Christian seminarian and member of the Presbyterian church who has cited his Christian faith often in an attempt to sell himself to the red state of Texas. Conservatives, however, have painted him as a wolf in sheep’s clothing and have pointed out several of his past statements, including calling God non-binary, to show he is too radical for Texas. Texas US Senator Ted Cruz shared the clip of Talarico, commenting in disbelief, “Um, wut?” Talarico critics claim he was referring to the state’s Bluebonnet curriculum, an English language arts curriculum adopted in 2024. The curriculum was used to help students understand biblical citations in historical documents and speeches such as Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. “The references to the Bible in the Bluebonnet curriculum help students understand the thousands of everyday idioms that people use every day that have some context to scripture. The Bluebonnet curriculum was defended by top religious liberty law firms like First Liberty Institute and high elected officials like Dr. Ben Carson,” Mary Elizabeth Castle, director of government relations for Texas Values, told Fox News Digital.

Castle said Talarico’s claims about the curriculum were “misleading.” “The purpose of the biblical references was to improve reading scores and reading comprehension among students. The majority of Texas parents and stakeholders testified in favor of the curriculum, which passed at the State Board of Education. A very small number of people would agree with Mr. Talarico’s sentiment, and a number of school districts have purchased this curriculum.”

Other Talarico critics have pointed to his own support of transgender “gender-affirming care” on children as hypocrisy. Talarico has recently stated he does not support transgender surgeries on minors, however in 2023 he voted against a bill that blocked such surgeries in the state and said such legislation “infuriates me.” Also, during a recent Austin “Pride for Talarico” fundraiser, Dr. Dustin Reid, a female-to-male breast surgeon was featured at the event. Dr. Reid has admitted to performing “rare” top surgeries on minors before such surgeries were banned in Texas. “And yet it’s OK to teach [children] about abnormal sexual activities that go against nature,” wrote one account on social media, criticizing Talarico. “And it’s OK for them to attend a Muslim mosque to learn about a fabricated presentation that Islam is a peaceful religion. It’s OK for them to have a male teacher dressed as a female. It’s OK for them to go to drag shows. It’s OK to have them to address a biological male as female and vice versa. And it’s OK for parents to participate in the delusion and foster a belief that a male child can be female and vice versa.”