Friday, January 19, 2018

#1951: Jimmy Matlock

Yes, it’s the state legislatures again. Jimmy Matlock is a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives for the 21st district (Lenoir City, parts of Loudon County and Monroe County). Among Matlock’s pet projects is to get prayers back in school. In 2014, for instance, he proposed designating the first Sunday of Augst the “Prayer Walking Day” for public schools, crediting America’s Christian majority as justification for the bill and emphasizing that the citizens of Tennessee, by law, “acknowledge that ultimate power, protection, and security come from God.” Apparently the bill was supposed to serve an important role in school shooting prevention.

Matlock’s striking lack of grasp of the relationship between goals and effective means is also well illustrated by his firm support of abstinence-only sex education. Of course, abstinence only sex education demonstrably and unambiguously does not work, but Matlock will have nothing of that: “I believe you can peel back all the data and the only true teaching of abstinence has been proven to work.” Evidence be damned when Matlock believes stuff.


Diagnosis: Theocrat light, with the wingnut’s distaste for constitution, freedom, evidence and decency.

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