Darwin, the Bible, and LIberal Hypocrisy

Here is an interesting piece about a biology teacher who was fired for deviating from his lesson plans while teaching Darwinism to students. The article makes it unclear exactly what he did, although it appears he used some passages from the Bible. He states that at no point did he teach Creationism or I.D.

The kicker comes with this comment from some leftie parent at the end;

"How many minds did he pollute?" Dan Harrison, the father of a student in Helphinstine's class, said at the meeting. "It's a thinly veiled attempt to hide his own agenda."

You have to admire the bravado in that statement; just 30 years ago calling the Bible ``pollution`` was unthinkable, and this jackass would have been ostricized by the community at large. It is amazing how things have changed!

That said, given the information at hand, this particular schoolboard was probably right in firing the teacher, since he was a part-timer and clearly not following the lesson plan for which he was employed. Scopes was canned for the exact same thing-a willful refusal to obey the rules set down by the local schoolboard (and the State in Scope`s case.) Parents have the right to approve the agenda being taught in schools (and it is an agenda, despite silly romantic notions to the contrary) and a non-tenured teacher simply can`t buck the system in any credible way. (For that matter, far too many tenured people have far too much leeway to editorialize in their classes. One wonders why anti-Bush rants aren`t disciplined as vigorously as Biblical ``pollution``.) When taking a job, the employee is duty-bound to obey the rules and procedures of his employer, whether he agrees with them or not. Of course, he is not compelled to do something he feels is immoral or dishonest, but he must be prepared to face the consequences, as this fellow apparently was willing to do.

My point here is that the culture wars are being lost in the important places-in homes, in school boards, at the grassroots. If Sisters, Oregon had been willing to come out for this teacher, the school board would have never had the nerve to fire him. Oregon is a nice blue state, and Sisters is probably a blue community, a place welcoming of Darwin, gay marriage, socialism, and the rest. It could be argued that this teacher did the community a service by bringing the issue to the public forum, but it was the wrong approach, one that played into the hands of the ``persecuted`` Darwinian theorists.

Then again, what material was being distributed to the students? I`ve always argued that the Bible is indeed relevant as a matter of the history of science, as is Greek philosophy, Arab mathematics and science, even the early Celtic culture and Mesoamerican Indian astronomy. If this teacher was discussing early biological beliefs as part of a history lesson, he was right to do so and his firing a despicable act of overreaction by a cowardly board. The teacher DID state unequivocally that he at no time taught Creationism.

Where is the ACLU? The ACLU claims to defend civil liberties, and is quick to mobilize when a liberal is prevented from teaching any sort of rubbish, yet is strangely silent when someone else has an ox being gored. If they were true to their principles they would be fighting for this guy, demanding he be reinstated, since his freedom of speech is being violated, as is ``academic freedom``. Why, it could be argued that this is intellectual fascism, demanding that teachers kowtow to a central committee! If this man were teaching that homosexuality were a natural biological drive and that, therefore, we should have gay marriage the brave champions of Liberty would have descended en-masse to rage against the Man. Their silence here is deafening-not because they are necessarily wrong in this instance, but because it violates their own principles. Their hypocrisy is showing.

But then, when did we come to expect even-handedness from liberals?