Oklahoma candidate James Taylor has turned his classroom into a Christian campaign studio

The pastor and public school teacher running for Superintendent of Public Instruction has pushed Christian Nationalism and used his classroom to film campaign ads

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As regular readers know by now, Oklahoma has had trouble when it comes to who oversees public education in the state. For years, the Superintendent of Public Instruction was Ryan Walters, a Christian Nationalist who did everything in his power to suck up to Donald Trump, shove the Bible in schools, and make it more embarrassing to say you graduated from an Oklahoma high school.

But then, last September, Walters suddenly resigned and he was replaced by Lindel Fields, a Republican who basically promised to get things back in order. To that end, he’s been as professional as you would hope, undoing many of Walters’ initiatives and focusing on education. I don’t say this about Republicans very often, but the state would be lucky to have him for another term.

Alas. He always said he was just stepping in temporarily, and that means voters will soon choose the next Superintendent of Public Instruction. While there’s already a Democrat on the ballot (Jennettie Marshall), the Republican field was so crowded that no one came away with a 50% share in the primary, which means there will be a runoff later this month.

One of the candidates who made the runoff is James Taylor, and there’s a reason he’s been called Ryan Walters 2.0. His bio boasts about how he’s a “history & government teacher” as well as a “senior pastor.” He has no administrative experience in public schools, but he claims he’s qualified anyway because he’s run a church. He used to teach in the Oklahoma City Public Schools, but he was fired in 2021 after refusing to wear a mask because he wanted to spread a disease more than he wanted to protect everyone’s health. (He’s currently embroiled in a lawsuit about the matter.) He now teaches at the Little Axe Public Schools. (More on that in a moment.)

James Taylor (screenshot via KFOR)

His campaign has been a hot mess so far. This is a guy who’s said he enjoys teaching history because—and I quote—”the early U.S. history is the early the birth of our country, which is our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage.”

During an interview with KFOR’s Spencer Humphrey, Taylor was asked about a hoax he spread about kids being furries and there being litter boxes in classrooms. His responses weren’t ideal:

HUMPHREY: I think it was at a Republican forum recently, you said, “I still can’t believe this is true in our great state, that there are furries on campuses, where they’ve got litter boxes for kids to use on campus. That’s a mental illness.” My first question is: What’s a furry?

TAYLOR: Well—I—that’s funny. A furry is a person who thinks that they’re an animal, as far as I can understand… I was up in the Tulsa area and two people asked me, “What are you going to do about the furries?” And that’s when I said, “I can’t believe that in our great state that this would be going on…”

HUMPHREY: So which specific school is it?

TAYLOR: I don’t know, I don’t know. They didn’t—I didn’t—they didn’t give me—I asked them where? Where? and they didn’t give me…

HUMPHREY: I mean, you know, that’s a widely debunked hoax that isn’t happening, right?

TAYLOR: That’s—that’s what I’m aware of, that… That’s why I just simply said, “I can’t believe this would be going on in our state.” Real simple. I just—I don’t believe it’s going on!… What is happening is they’re afraid I’m going to win. And so they have to create fear.

HUMPHREY: Is spreading a known hoax like that, is that a fear tactic?

TAYLOR: I didn’t spread a hoax. They—they’re spreading the hoax! I answered a question.

It got worse. Elsewhere in the interview, Taylor defended the Bible in school because “We’re not teaching Buddha history or Islamic history or any of those type of things. This is America. And so our law, the way our nation came into existence, all came from Judeo-Christian principles.” (None of that is true.)

Finally, Humphrey brought up the fact that Taylor’s campaign communications director was Lane Brown, a former staffer of Ryan Walters best known for using slurs like “r****d” and “f****t” to go after his enemies, calling for the deportation of all Muslims, and calling non-Christians “third-world parasites.”

Brown was in the room for the interview and immediately shut it down during that line of questioning because, like all right-wing trolls, he can’t handle being called out for being a jackass. (Taylor has since said that Brown no longer works for him.)

But none of that even compares to the most egregious thing Taylor has done so far—and this time, he can’t blame anyone but himself. He filmed campaign ads inside his own classrooms and let them go up on social media until the school district demanded he pull them all down.

Little Axe Superintendent Jay Thomas published a statement calling out how Taylor didn’t ask for or receive permission to record those ads

Earlier today, we were alerted that an employee of Little Axe Public School who is running for state office had made multiple campaign ads using school resources including a school classroom. Let us be clear, the employee acted without the knowledge or permission of district administration. The actions are an improper use of school resources and may be a violation of campaign ethics rules. After repeated requests to remove the posts from his social media platforms and his failure to do so, it is necessary to explain that Little Axe Public School does not endorse any candidate for any office. Nor does Little Axe Public School District endorse the use of district property in this way. According to the Oklahoma State School Boards Association, "Employees who are candidates may not use district resources related to their campaign nor may they promote their candidacy on district time. All sharing of information regarding the election/candidacy must occur off school district premises and during personal time unless the district is holding a candidate forum for a particular race"… We will continue to use all appropriate measures to see that the offending ads and posts are taken down.

Taylor himself responded to that statement by simply acknowledging he had removed the videos:

Today, Little Axe Public Schools released a statement regarding campaign content that included footage from my classroom,” Taylor said. “I want to set the record straight. On August 1, after viewing an email from my superintendent raising concerns about the content, I instructed my campaign team to remove the video from our social media platforms. They complied with that request, and the content was taken down. Unfortunately, by the time it was removed, Little Axe Public Schools had already issued its public statement.”

“At no point was there any intent to misuse school resources or distract from the important work being done in our classrooms. As both an educator and a candidate for State Superintendent, I take full responsibility for the content that was posted and at no point did Little Axe Public Schools have anything to do with my filming in the school.”

“I would like to reiterate that this issue has been resolved.” Taylor said. “The reason I am in this race is for the future of the children of Oklahoma. They deserve a quality education, and that’s why we’re bringing real reform and accountability to Oklahoma schools to serve Oklahoma families.

At no point did he apologize or even acknowledge why filming campaign videos inside his classroom might be inappropriate. For a guy who wants to run public education throughout the state, his blind spots are everywhere and the stuff he can see is littered with biblical garbage.

These weren’t just campaign ads either. One of them also involved a rant against Dr. Anthony Fauci… which makes sense coming from a COVID denier who refused to wear masks.

For a man who’s run multiple failed campaigns for Congress, it’s incredible he doesn’t know the basic rules of filming campaign ads. And if his pitch to voters is that he’ll surround himself with people who are smarter than him in areas where he’s deficient, he’s already proving he’s incapable of doing that.

But wait! There’s more.

In the days following that incident, American Atheists says they were told by a concerned parent that Taylor is still flogging his campaign material in his classroom as well as promoting his religious and political beliefs. (The school year has already started in the district so this is happening now.)

The group just wrote a letter to the school district urging them to follow up:

According to the parent, Dr. Taylor keeps one of his books, It’s Biblical, Not Political: How to Line Candidates Up Biblically, as well as a DVD he produced, Critical Race Theory vs. The Bible, prominently displayed in his classroom. Given the expressly sectarian nature of these materials, the parent is deeply concerned that Dr. Taylor will incorporate them or other religious materials into his lesson plans. American Atheists shares her concerns.

The letter also notes that Taylor included “a reference to the Beatitudes in an handout accompanying the [course] syllabus on the first day of class.”

That book of his, by the way, features a Bible next to bullets. In case you want to know how broken his brain is.

The group is now citing school board policy and the Supreme Court’s decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor to get copies of all of Taylor’s lesson plans and course materials that involve religion “in order to determine whether any such lessons are likely to conflict with the family’s nonreligious beliefs and should seek to withdraw her child from any individual lessons taught by Dr. Taylor.”

For a man who constantly talks about the Constitution, he doesn’t seem to know the first thing about it.

Nick Fish, President of American Atheists, added: “This is unfortunately only the latest example of a troubling trend we’re seeing across the country of culture warriors claiming they’re fighting ‘secular’ indoctrination in public schools while demanding that their own sectarian worldview gets special treatment. But church-state separation has never been about excluding religion from public life. It’s about protecting religious freedom for all by ensuring public institutions don’t favor one faith over another. It’s how we defend the civil rights of every American, no matter your belief or lack thereof.”

This may highlight the biggest problem with Taylor’s candidacy. His misuse of a public school classroom wasn’t some accidental campaign mistake. It’s a preview of how he would govern. He clearly believes taxpayer-funded spaces are a backdrop for his personal beliefs, no matter how absurd they are.

Oklahoma has just endured one superintendent who treated public education as a platform for self-promotion, culture war battles, and Christian Nationalist grandstanding. Teachers, students, and parents all paid the price for Ryan Walters’ arrogance. And now Taylor wants to bring it all back—the same biblical revisionism, the same debunked culture-war garbage, the same contempt for church-state separation, and even some of the same disgraced staffers. Oklahoma doesn’t need Ryan Walters 2.0 because Ryan Walters 1.0 was damning enough.

And nothing Taylor has done suggests he can be trusted to put children ahead of himself. He refused to wear face masks, endangering the people around him. He promoted a hoax without bothering to verify it (only to distance himself when pressed for details). He hired a Walters lackey whose only skill is hurling slurs at people online. And he’s apparently used his classroom to advance his campaign and personal religious beliefs. His entire professional career is about putting kids last because his own ideology and ego must come first.

Oklahoma deserves so much better than this. If voters there have enjoyed the non-Walters respite of the past year, there’s a simple way to keep it going: Vote for anyone but Taylor. (And if they’re smart, they’ll elect the Democrat, but my hopes aren’t that high.) Students there deserve a superintendent who cares more about improving education than generating outrage and winning converts.

Taylor has already shown Oklahoma where his priorities lie. Voters should believe him before they make the mistake of handing him power.

The Republican runoff takes place on August 25.

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