Saturday, October 29, 2005
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness, Unless of Course...
Take for example, Argento's report of former Dover board member Bill Buckingham's testimony at the trial:
He [Buckingham, RSR] said he stood before the congregation one Sunday morning and said "there was a need" for money to buy "Of Pandas and People" and if anyone wanted to give, they could.
"But I didn't ask anyone for money," he said.
[Plaintiff Attorney Steve, RSR] Harvey asked him whether he took up a collection at his church, Harmony Grove Community Church.
"Not as such," Buckingham said.
So the lawyer asked him whether he got in front of the congregation and asked for donations.
"I didn't," Buckingham said. He paused. "I'm sorry, I did say that, but there was more to it," he said. Anyway, he collected the money — wherever it came from — and then he wrote a check for $850 to Donald Bonsell, father of then-school board President Alan Bonsell.
But previously, when asked by the lawyer about who donated the books, he said he didn't know.
"Mr. Buckingham, you lied to me at your deposition ... isn't that true?" Harvey asked.
"How so?" Buckingham responded.
What we are confronted with in Dover, apparently, is a biblical literalism that demands absolute faith in Genesis, yet embraces a loosey goosey moral relativism on the Ten Commandment's prohibition against lying.
BTW: Ed Brayton of Dispatches from the Culture Wars has also had particularly good coverage of Buckingham's testimony.
