Accidental Blogger

The devout hang ’em high legislators of Texas have for long conducted a protracted battle with those who want to maintain a sense of balance, fairness and rationality in school curricula. They want to inject religion into schools every opportunity they see. The recent passing of Texas House Bill 3678 has fulfilled some of their fondest dreams. The Bill has been disingenuously touted as an Anti Discrimination Bill by Governor Rick Perry.  Not everyone in Texas agrees.

Although the above bill has paved the way for allowing student led religious activities such as prayers at football games and graduation ceremonies, it does not address one of the most cherished dreams of Texas right wingers – the introduction of Creationism in science classes as a valid alternative to the Theory of Evolution. The fundamentalists in the state legislature and the state department of education would not only like to see Creationism taught to school children, some would like to forbid the discussion of evolution. Unsuccessful so far, the last attempt was to scare Christians by claiming that the theory of evolution is a Jewish conspiracy. But they haven’t given up.  What the obscurantists cannot back up with facts, they wish to accomplish by intimidation.  Texas Education Agency’s science director, Chris Comer resigned (was forced to resign?) after she was suspended for forwarding an email announcing an upcoming talk by philosopher Barbara Forrest who is a tireless opponent of Intelligent Design and the author of Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse. See Barbara Forrest’s profile here and the devious circumstances under which Comer was made to resign, here. Trojan Horse indeed!

I got in touch with Professor Forrest last night and asked her to elucidate further on the shameful Texas case. She wrote:

"I was wondering if you had been keeping up with this issue. Isn’t this something? I don’t have any inside knowledge. I know what I am reading in the paper. I did call Ms. Comer to tell her how sorry I am that this happened to her. She was very nice and glad that I called her. I will be releasing a statement, hopefully tomorrow. If you will e-mail me in a couple of days, I may have a place to which you can link to the statement."

A recent flap at the Texas Education Agency demonstrates why we need to teach history better so we can teach science better.

After nine years as the Texas Education Agency’s science director, Chris Comer resigned after being suspended for appearing to oppose the "intelligent design" theory of the origins of the universe.

TEA officials say other factors were involved in her firing, but e-mails obtained by the Austin American-Statesman make clear that Comer’s scientific orthodoxy and apparent political heresy were a major factor.

Her mortal sin was that in October she sent an e-mail to an Austin online community announcing an upcoming lecture by Barbara Forrest, a Southeast Louisiana University philosophy professor and co-author of Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse.

‘Creationism relabeled’

Forrest is hardly alone in her notion that "intelligent design," which argues that gaps in evolution theory means that a Creator must be responsible for the universe, is itself the creation of biblical creationists.

Two years ago a federal judge in Pennsylvania, after listening to six weeks of expert testimony and legal arguments, ruled a school board could not require the teaching of "intelligent design," which he called "creationism relabeled."

Apparently the first call for Comer’s firing came from TEA staffer Lizzette Reynolds who had been sent a copy of the e-mail. Reynolds served as a legislative director for then-Gov. George Bush and went on to serve in his U.S. Department of Education. She was hired as the TEA’s "senior adviser on statewide initiatives" last January.

A Christian nation

Reynolds e-mailed Comer’s bosses, saying Comer’s apparent recommendation of the lecture "is an offense that calls for termination or, at the very least, reassignment of responsibilities."

So a science educator should be fired for promoting a lecture by a supporter of science? What kinds of "statewide initiatives" does this senior adviser promote? One possibility: The State Board of Education soon will review our schools’ science curriculum.

Promoters of creationism and intelligent design sometimes suggest that the biblical account deserves a special place in our schools (as opposed to, say, Hindu or Hopi creation stories) because the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation.

Here are some historical incidents that prove that we were, indeed, founded as a Christian nation:

•In the early 17th century, Sam Maverick, an English immigrant to Boston and an ancestor of the famous Texas Mavericks, was jailed for repeatedly missing church.

•About the same time, Baptist preacher Roger Williams came to Massachusetts to escape religious persecution in England. After being quoted as saying local Puritan authorities "cannot without a spiritual rape force the consciences of all to one worship," he was secretly warned by Gov. John Winthrop that he was in peril.

He fled to live with a group of Native Americans, then purchased what is now Rhode Island from them, setting it up as a colony that honored religious freedom.

•In 1844, a Jesuit priest in Maine advised Catholic families to go to court to block a school board order that required their children to read the Protestant King James version of the Bible in school. The priest was grabbed by a mob while hearing confessions on a Saturday evening, stripped of his clothes, tarred and feathered.

•In 1859, 11-year-old Tom Wall refused to recite the Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in his Boston public school. After consulting with his principal, Tom’s teacher hit the boy across the knuckles with a 3-foot rattan stick.

The boy again refused. The punishment was repeated. The boy still refused. After half an hour of the painful punishment, he relented despite fearing that he was betraying his God. His father filed assault charges and went to court to challenge the reading requirement. He lost.

•In 1869, the Cincinnati school board voted 22-15 to honor the request of Catholic parents to end the reading of the Bible in school. Protestant parents filed suit.

A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 for the Protestants, saying the reading of the Bible was necessary for good government.

The doctrine of separation of church and state is not found in the Constitution. It evolved through the courts and through public consensus based on painful experience.

It was not a sop to Jews or Muslims or ACLU atheists. It was developed to keep some Christians from ruling the consciences of other Christians, just as for centuries they had attempted to do in Europe.

Its logic was most forcefully stated by the Christian judges of the Ohio Supreme Court, who overturned the above ruling with these words:

"When Christianity asks the aid of government beyond mere impartial protection, it denies itself. Its laws are divine and not human. Its essential interests lie beyond the reach and range of human governments. United with government, religion never rises above the merest superstition; united with religion, government never rises above the merest despotism; and all history shows us that the more widely and completely they are separated, the better it is for both."