Florida Lawmaker: Require Schools Screen D’Souza Movie Because ‘The Truth Will Set You Free’

Florida state senator D. Alan Hays is defending his bill to require public school students to watch conservative activist Dinesh D’Souza’s anti-Obama movie “America” by arguing that the movie will help to “remove politics from the educational system” and also turn kids against President Obama.

“I think the educational system failure is the biggest reason that the current occupant of the White House sits there. I think his occupancy of the White House is an indictment of our educational system all across America and we need to get back to teaching the truth,” Hays said in an interview with Newsmax today. “We need to remove politics from the educational system, we need to teach history as it happened and teach it truthfully showing the whole story, and that’s what this movie does quite well.”

When asked, however, the Republican lawmaker could not name a single example of a “mistruth” taught in public schools.

Hays made a similar statement in an interview with pseudo-historian David Barton last month, when he contended that the “embarrassment” of President Obama’s election is proof that “our students have not been properly educated.”

In the Newsmax appearance, Hays predicted that his bill will pass the state legislature and earn the support of Gov. Rick Scott since D’Souza’s movie is about the truth and “the truth will set you free.” Critics, he alleged, are simply “afraid of the truth.”

“I will put Americanism and patriotism right up beside any other system that anybody wants to put at it, and give them honest presentations, I guarantee you that Americanism is going to win every time,” he continued. “My word to anybody of another thought process: bring it on. Are you afraid of the truth? And if you’re not, then don’t object to showing this movie.”

Tags: D. Alan Hays