Thursday, November 02, 2006
Where Are They Now?
Oh what a difference one election can make.
If you don't believe that, take a moment to think back to last July and the run up to the Kansas primary election.
Then, the Discovery Institute was holding a news conference to announce that they'd set up a website for Kansans to "Stand Up For Science" -- not to influence the election, mind you. They even bought ads on Christian radio stations to promote their not-so-hidden agenda of promoting religion in science classes.
Then too, John Calvert of the Intelligent Design Network was stumping the state for intelligent design -- and he had a website, too.
Today, with less than a week to go before the general election the silence from the intelligent design camp has been deafening. Neither the Discovery nor the ID Network websites have been updated since last July. There are no radio ads and no speaking tours to defend the intelligent design inspired science standards and the two fundamentalist board members who survived the primary election: John Bacon and Ken Willard.
That's because -- despite all those polls we keep hearing about that say Kansans are clamoring for intelligent design -- two candidates identified with ID, Connie Morris and Brad Patzer, were defeated in the primary insuring that the new board majority would reject ID in science classes.
Bacon and Willard, the remaining right-wingers on the board who are up for election this year, who not long ago were telling audiences that in the end you have to decide between evolution and the Bible, have absolutely clammed up about ID -- they now portray themselves as misunderstood moderates.
Electing real moderates such as Don Weiss and Jack Wempe next Tuesday will insure that fundamentalists who are running away from ID now don't reverse course to embrace it -- as they surely will -- after.
If you don't believe that, take a moment to think back to last July and the run up to the Kansas primary election.
Then, the Discovery Institute was holding a news conference to announce that they'd set up a website for Kansans to "Stand Up For Science" -- not to influence the election, mind you. They even bought ads on Christian radio stations to promote their not-so-hidden agenda of promoting religion in science classes.
Then too, John Calvert of the Intelligent Design Network was stumping the state for intelligent design -- and he had a website, too.
Today, with less than a week to go before the general election the silence from the intelligent design camp has been deafening. Neither the Discovery nor the ID Network websites have been updated since last July. There are no radio ads and no speaking tours to defend the intelligent design inspired science standards and the two fundamentalist board members who survived the primary election: John Bacon and Ken Willard.
That's because -- despite all those polls we keep hearing about that say Kansans are clamoring for intelligent design -- two candidates identified with ID, Connie Morris and Brad Patzer, were defeated in the primary insuring that the new board majority would reject ID in science classes.
Bacon and Willard, the remaining right-wingers on the board who are up for election this year, who not long ago were telling audiences that in the end you have to decide between evolution and the Bible, have absolutely clammed up about ID -- they now portray themselves as misunderstood moderates.
Electing real moderates such as Don Weiss and Jack Wempe next Tuesday will insure that fundamentalists who are running away from ID now don't reverse course to embrace it -- as they surely will -- after.
