Charlie Kirk spent his life fighting to put God back in America's classrooms.
Now a Baptist pastor turned Ohio lawmaker is carrying that fight across the finish line.
The Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act just cleared the Ohio House and what it puts back into public schools will make every liberal in the state lose their mind.
What the Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act Does to Public School Classrooms
Ohio House Bill 486 does something radical by today's standards.
It gives teachers permission to tell the truth.
The Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act authorizes public school teachers and college instructors to teach the positive impact of Judeo-Christian values on American history.
No teacher is required to do anything – they just cannot be punished for doing it.
Rep. Gary Click – a Baptist pastor who spent 30 years in ministry before winning his seat in the Ohio House – wrote the bill to restore what school administrators have spent decades burying.
The legislation covers 20 specific historical topics.
The Pilgrims organized as a church.
Benjamin Franklin called for prayer at the Constitutional Convention.
The Ten Commandments shaped American law.
Billy Graham influenced American civic life.
Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Martin Luther King Jr. all drew from Christian faith in the civil rights movement.
Click put it simply: the bill "removes the invisible shackles that often hinder a full and transparent teaching of American history."
Every one of those topics was already legally permissible in Ohio classrooms.
The Supreme Court settled this decades ago – public schools may teach about the Bible as part of a secular educational program.
But teachers stopped doing it anyway.
Not because the law changed. Because the culture in teachers' lounges and faculty meetings made it career suicide to try.
That is what Click is actually fixing.
Democrats Voted Against Teaching Christianity in Ohio Schools
The Ohio House passed the Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act 62 to 27.
Every single yes vote was Republican. Every single no vote was Democrat.
Not one Democrat could bring themselves to vote for teaching that Benjamin Franklin prayed.
State Rep. Sean Brennan – a Democrat who describes himself as a practicing Catholic – voted against the bill.
His reason? America has "evolved" and is "more inclusive."
More inclusive than what? The Founding Fathers?
Charlie Kirk backed this legislation before Tyler Robinson shot him in the neck at Utah Valley University last September.
The National Association of Christian Lawmakers asked Click to share the bill as model legislation for other states.
Ohio is not alone in this fight – and the Left is losing it everywhere.
Ten Commandments in Schools Is Winning Across America
Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas passed laws requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
Tennessee advanced Bible curriculum legislation.
Oklahoma tried – until activist judges blocked it.
Red America is fighting back state by state, and the Left's opposition collapses every time they open their mouths to make the case.
Ohio Council for the Social Studies president Sarah Kaka called the bill "a skewed perspective on history."
An Indiana University professor labeled it "Christian nationalism" – his term for any effort to acknowledge that the men who wrote the Constitution believed in God.
Click handled that directly.
"That is a dog whistle," he said. "That's crisis language in order to scare people."
He is right.
These are the same people who spent years removing the Founders from school curricula, replacing American history with lessons about how evil America is, and telling your kids the country they live in is beyond redemption.
Now someone wants to teach that Franklin prayed at the Constitutional Convention – and they are calling it extremism.
Jeff Wensing, president of the Ohio Education Association representing 120,000 teachers, could not even take a side.
He showed up to testify as neither a proponent nor an opponent.
One hundred and twenty thousand educators and their union president could not say yes to teaching American history.
That tells you everything about what has happened to education in this country.
The Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act faces a final Senate vote before December.
Sources:
- Ohio House of Representatives, "Ohio House Passes Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act," Ohio House Republican News, November 19, 2025.
- LegiScan, "Ohio HB486 – 136th General Assembly," LegiScan.com, 2026.
- NBC4i, "Ohio Senate Considers Charlie Kirk Act to Teach Positively About Christianity," WCMH, April 6, 2026.
- Britannica, "Assassination of Charlie Kirk," Britannica.com, September 2025.
- NPR, "An Ohio Lawmaker Wants Schools to Teach Religion's Impact on U.S. History," NPR.org, May 28, 2026.