Jesusland Next Door to Me

I live in New York - a reliably moderate to liberal state which, even when we elect Republicans, generally selects centrist, pro-life, enlightened ones. (Note, please, that I said generally.) But just a stone's throw to the South of me is the border of Pennsylvania. The Keystone State is a mystery to many people. How they will vote in national elections is often a crap shoot. The state has a staggeringly eclectic mix of communities covering such a broad spectrum of political, social and religious beliefs that a full tour of it would send M.C. Escher for a brief lie down in a dark room with a cool cloth on his forehead. They have everything from the hard driving Democratic revolutionists of Philadelphia to the buggy driving Amish who swarm across the middle of the state like army ants dressed all in black.

In one such pocket, Dover by name, the Flat Earth Crew has struck another blow for the forces of light and goodness in their efforts to eliminate pesky, evil things like science and facts from our schools. This happy little burg recently voted to force teachers in their high school to enlighten their students about "Intelligent Design Theory" (i.e. Creationism) in addition to Darwin's theory of evolution. How do the good folk of Dover feel about that?

Lark Myers, a blond, 45-year-old gift shop owner, frames the question and answers it. "I definitely would prefer to believe that God created me than that I'm 50th cousin to a silverback ape," she said. "What's wrong with wanting our children to hear about all the holes in the theory of evolution?"

You know... that's probably the best, most honest answer I've heard yet. It's not that they have anything against science, reason or discovery in principle. They just "dun want ta be related ta no damned monkeys, damnitall."

Funny... you voted for Bush by a landslide.

Edit: If you want to read a very long piece by a whack job who tried to defend the creationism camp as an alternate form of science, check out right wing darling Hugh Hewitt. While somewhat frightening, at least in that he gets so many readers and links from Bushie blogs, it is still fairly amusing. Here's a priceless, classic quote to get you started.

[C]an't supporters of ID and EB just get along? Instead of fighting, it seems like a more profitable effort for each to use the other: believers can use the extraordinary, divine beauty of evolution and the wonders it produces as further evidence for the existence of the God of the Bible; scientists can use the Bible to develop a moral core that elevates them from being merely human beings to actual persons, a morality that cannot possibly be supplied by science

And to think, in this entry, he's actually arguing about the "bias" of the Wapo writer who penned the piece on that Pa. school.