Naturally, you just figured you’d throw out a little distraction from the fact that the religious right is waging open war on science by suggesting that the left is also part of the “problem.” So 56 percent of Kerry voters support teaching creationism and evolution in schools? So what. Believing something in one’s personal life doesn’t always translate into political activism. The activism on this issue is coming squarely from the right. Religious liberals aren’t the ones pushing the issue in local school boards. So when you say it isn’t only a “GOP problem” why is it that the only “problems” we ever hear about are lead by the religious right?

Show me the school board run by Kerry-voting liberal christians who have added Intelligent Design or creationism to science classes? Can you find me one example of a liberal dominated school board pushing such a policy?

Let’s also not forget that only 24 percent of Kerry supporters favor teaching creationism instead of evolution. It’s 45 with Bush voters. That’s what’s really scray. Both candidates during the campaign took a moderate, pass the buck approach to the issue during the campaign:

Creationism
Science: Should  intelligent design or other scientific
critiques of evolutionary theory be taught in public schools?
BUSH: The federal government has no control over local
curricula, and it is not the federal government s role to tell
states and local boards of education what they should teach in
the classroom. Of course, scientific critiques of any theory
should be a normal part of the science curriculum.
KERRY: I believe that ideology should not trump science in
the context of educating our children. Still, public school
curriculum is a matter subject to local control. Communities
must decide which sound, scientific theories are appropriate
for the classroom.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1104420v1.pdf

At least Kerry added the word “sound” because intelligent design is not only not sound science, it ain’t science period. Nevertheless, after the campaign, in August of 2005, Bush felt comfortable coming right out and explicitly advocating that Intelligent Design ought to be taught in the schools:

“President Bush invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution in public schools with remarks saying that schoolchildren should be taught about “intelligent design,” a view of creation that challenges established scientific thinking and promotes the idea that an unseen force is behind the development of humanity …

‘Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about,’ he said, according to an official transcript of the session. Bush added: ‘Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. . . . You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.’

And how did the Religious Right respond? I give you Gary Bauer:

“With the president endorsing it, at the very least it makes Americans who have that position more respectable, for lack of a better phrase,” said Gary L. Bauer, a Christian conservative leader who ran for president against Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries. “It’s not some backwater view. It’s a view held by the majority of Americans.”

A majority of people in this country are religious, believe in God and accept the Bible as true or close enough. But face it JWG, only one side of the political spectrum has embraced intelligenct design and creationism as a political wedge issue and it is the right.

you d have to be deliberately obtuse to argue that…

I never did. But it’s ignorant to claim that “creationist morons are always Republicans” when the vast majority of the population believes in it.

also support it being taught in public schools

Did you read the part that Kerry voters “favor schools teaching creationism and evolution” together by 56%? That’s scary.

Um, but are they? There’s a big difference between those who believe in creationism and those who go the extra step to argue that creationism should be taught schools. Which is not to say that no Democratic candidate or politicians would espouse teaching creationism, especially since one of the Democratic Kansas board members is facing a primary challenge from an ID supporting Dem.

The challenger, however, does not have the support of the local party, the leadership of which, assumes that he is a “stealth candidate” recruited to run in the Dem primary by the right:

Michael Peterson, chairman of the Wyandotte County Democratic Party, said Hall was being used by the  radical right.

 I assume he is being recruited by outside influences, said Peterson, who is also a state legislator.  For some reason he has affiliated himself with the radical right.

Hmmm. So here you have a situation where a Dem is running in the primary on a pro-creationism platform and the Dem leadership is opposed to his candidacy, indeed, they are attacking him as a whipping boy for the far right.

Still, we’ll have to see how the primary turns out to know whether or not rank and file dems, who may belive in creationism, also support it being taught in public schools.

At the same time, you’d have to be deliberately obtuse to argue that Democrats are leading the charge in Kansas or anywhere else to put creationism back in the schools.

Look, this is not a “GOP” problem. You shouldn’t find any solace in the fact that the Republicans contain a few more creationists. There’s enough in the Democratic party to cause problems for science education across the nation.

There are a lot of creationist morons. Creationist morons vote. Let’s just say it’s another case of the GOP taking an expedient view of matters, irrespective of the outcome. (QV: Iraq.)

American creationists have given the United States the distinction of being the only industrialized state that has a significiant proportion of this brand of scientifically uneducated moron.