Red State Rabble

Georgia State House Rep. Ben Bridges, a Republican natch, has sent a letter to like-thinking to state legislators in Texas, California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio saying “Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion... This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia.”

Does this indicate Bridges ludicrous anti-eveolutionism has at last evolved into anti-Semitism? Well, as the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports, the Anti-Defamation League " is calling on state Rep. Ben Bridges to apologize for a memo distributed under his name that says the teaching of evolution should be banned in public schools because it is a religious deception stemming from an ancient Jewish sect."

Josh Marsall, who is also reporting the story on his Talking Points Memo blog, adds these details:

Warren Chisum (R), House Appropriations Committee Chairman in the Texas state House, took the memo from his friend Bridges and used the House operations system to distribute the memo throughout the legislature. (Here's Chisum's cover letter and the Bridges' memo.)

The ADL caught wind of the Bridges memo and now Chisum says he's "willing to apologize if I've offended anyone" if anyone got their big nose bent out of shape.

Chisum's non-apology apology reflects the sophistry of his creationist views. Here's what he told the Dallas Morning News:

"No, absolutely, although I'm a Christian, and I believe in creation," he said. Creation science is the idea that the Earth was created in six days some 6,000 years ago.

"You ought to teach creation as well as the fact of evolution," Mr. Chisum said, though he said "all of those kinds of sciences have holes in them. ... But I'm not about teaching religion in schools."

Aside from the casual anti-Semitism that goes hand in hand with this sort of thinking, the most interesting part of this story is what these people take to be a legitimate source of evidence for the case they make: The Fixed Earth Web site.

The Fixed Earth source that Bridges and Chisum find so convincing opposes Darwinian and Copernican myths. "The Earth," they say, "is not rotating...nor is it going around the sun... The whole scheme from Copernicanism to Big Bangism is a factless lie."

Well, why would you believe scientists or historians when you have experts like these at your disposal?