Prairie Ayatollahs

This is almost breathtaking, coming* as it does from a small town in my home state of Kansas, a state that's been having some high-visibility troubles lately with religious extremists on its State Board of Education: it's an editorial in The Hutchinson [KS] News called
"The Prairie Ayatollahs". It begins this way:

Members of the State Board of Education can believe that God created the world 6,000 years ago. They can believe that intelligent design actually holds up to scientific scrutiny.

Privately, they can believe whatever they wish.

But when they begin imposing their religious beliefs on the public, they overstep their authority.

They become prairie ayatollahs.

It summarizes how Republican member Kathy Martin insists that schools teach abstinance-before-marriage, else risk losing their accreditation. Republican Ken Willard thinks thinks teaching abstinance should be required, although if they already do it, that's fine; he's not exactly sure what they teach, to be honest.

Then there's Republican Connie Morris, who made something of a name for herself during last year's ridiculous hearings on teaching so-called "Intelligent Design" in Kansas Schools. She saw a cartoon of the now-famous Flying Spaghetti Monster on a teacher's door in a Witchita middle school and she was not amused.

Morris, a St. Francis [Kansas] Republican, believes that God created the world about 6,000 years ago. She and Martin proved instrumental in a board decision last fall to adopt new science standards critical of evolution.

The board turned to promoters of intelligent design, religion cloaked as science, to develop the new standards. An artist in the Pacific Northwest developed the Flying Spaghetti Monster creation myth to poke fun at the board.

Seeing the drawing on a classroom door angered Morris.

Some societies value freedom of expression. Some defend the right of individuals to think for themselves, even if their beliefs run contrary to those held by government leaders. Some societies also enjoy a good joke. But not Morris.

She rejects the values that separate the United States from a theocratic republic like Iran.

In their concluding paragraphs, the editors of the The Hutchinson News ventures to write what big-city editors have been too timid to say:

Societies that value integrity promote academic inquiry and seek objective truth. Kansas, for the time being, remains that kind of society.

But when members of the State Board of Education begin promoting their personal religious beliefs as public policy, they create a society that discounts critical analysis, study and fact – a society that promotes indoctrination in state religion.

They set themselves up as prairie ayatollahs, arbiters of all that is right and true.

———-
*First seen at Josh Roseneau, "Hutchinson News comes out swinging", Thoughts from Kansas, 20 April 2006.

Posted on April 22, 2006 at 22.59 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Writing

One Response

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  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Sunday, 23 April 2006 at 02.45
    Permalink

    Just goes to show you, gold is where you find it.

    Hats off to the editorial writer(s) at the Hutchinson News.

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