The Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act: Rewriting History
Photo via Ohio Statehouse Gallery
Michael Oliss | News Editor
The Ohio House has advanced House Bill 486, also known as the Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act, a measure that would allow public school and state-university instructors to teach about what it calls the “historical and positive impact” of religion — especially Christianity — on U.S. history.
The bill was introduced by Republican Reps. Gary Click and Mike Dovilla, who say it preserves religious liberty in education and supports free speech on topics they believe are underrepresented. The bill declares that teaching Christianity’s influence on American institutions is “factual.”
The bill’s text includes a reference to the nation’s response to Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, citing a supposed suggestion from Franklin that Paine should burn the manuscript. That is impossible — Paine wrote The Age of Reason beginning in 1793, three years after Franklin died in 1790. That discrepancy, highlighted by educators, commentators, and opponents, has become a focal point in the debate over the bill’s supposed “factuality” and historical accuracy.
HB 486 outlines more than two dozen religiously oriented topics that teachers may include in lessons. These range from the Pilgrims and the Mayflower Compact to the Northwest Ordinance, the Ten Commandments’ alleged influence on American law, the myth of the First Thanksgiving, chaplains in the Revolutionary War, the First Great Awakening, and the work of major religious figures such as Rev. John Witherspoon and evangelist Billy Graham.
Graham, who died in 2018 at the age of 99, is known for his controversial statements, publicly or in private. In 1973, he met with President Richard Nixon and conversed on religious matters in America. It was in that recorded conversation that Graham called a group of Jewish journalists, “a synagogue of Satan.” He also believed the Jewish religion had a “stranglehold” on American media. If HB 486 is signed into law, teachers will have the freedom to praise him and his influence on American heritage and culture.
Supporters of HB 486 argue it protects educators who want to discuss religion’s role in American history without being accused of violating church-state boundaries. They say the measure does not mandate curriculum changes but clarifies that such instruction is permissible.
Opponents — including civil liberties groups, historians and teacher organizations — say the bill promotes a selective, ideologically influenced version of U.S. history. The ACLU of Ohio argues that existing First Amendment law already permits teaching about religion and that HB 486 instead frames Christianity in exclusively positive terms while omitting historically documented harms linked to religious institutions.
The Ohio Council for the Social Studies also opposes the bill, saying the state’s academic standards already address religion’s historical influence and noting that social studies teachers were not consulted during the bill’s drafting.
HB 486 would apply to both K–12 public schools and state colleges and universities. It passed the House along party lines and now heads to the Ohio Senate for further consideration.