A retired Texas schoolteacher who received national attention for her outrageous conspiracy theories and claimed President Obama was once a gay prostitute was denied a spot on the state board of education Tuesday. Bruner is back on the ballot Tuesday, May 24, 2016, after almost clinching the Republican nomination outright in March.
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Only several months ago, Mary Lou Bruner, 69, of Mineola, Texas, had been the front-runner for the powerful seat on the Texas State Board of Education, the second-largest school system in the nation.
Bruner’s campaign, which started strongly, seemed to unravel when old Facebook posts of hers were uncovered showing off her somewhat unorthodox beliefs.
Ellis refused to criticize Bruner following his own nomination, saying instead that people “just picked a name” during the primaries, rather than researching who they were voting for.
Ellis won the runoff with an 18-point lead over Bruner, and will likely win the general election in November, according to the Texas Tribune. The Democratic nominee is a professor at Stephen F. Austin University. Although it might have made sense “to take small dinosaurs onto the ark instead of the ones bigger than a bus”, she wrote, the flood drowning those of reproductive age is what really wiped out dinosaurs – and not a meteor as “concocted” by atheists. “If Bruner had ultimately won election to the board, she would have instantly become the most embarrassingly uninformed and divisive member on a board that already too often puts politics ahead of making sure our kids get a sound education”.
Her election would be stunning, even given that the Texas State Board of Education was chaired until 2011 by a creationist who tried weakening evolution lessons in science classrooms.
Bruner has discussed at length how baby dinosaurs were kept on board Noah’s ark but died out shortly after the flood subsided because there were not enough trees left for them to eat.
But she also went further, claiming that “the U.S. should ban Islam” altogether, stating that Muslims” “goal is to conquer the US and kill the infidels’. TFN, a necessary watchdog over the state’s BOE, originally revealed Bruner’s conspiracist Facebook posts back in March.
“Texas escaped an education train wreck tonight”, Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said in the statement.
Bruner did not respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday night. Mary Lou Bruner appeared alongside her opponent, Republican Keven Ellis, who on Monday said her victory would make Texas “take a step backward nearly to the “Little House on the Prairie” days”, a reference to the books about the pioneering Ingalls family set in the 19th century.
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Bruner had never apologized for her post about Obama and when asked about it she had replied: ‘You are obviously a hostile and biased reporter pretending to be a friendly reporter to gain my confidence.
