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There was a story in yesterday's NYT about a group placing "Bible" classes
in various public schools. Apparently, the content includes assertions
about intelligent design. So it would appear there is a mutli-pronged
approach.
To me, what is most interesting about the President's statement is that it
follows on the heels of the Viennese Catholic Archbishop's statement that
evolution is in doubt. I think it is a mistake to underestimate the
political ties between the anti-abortion forces in the right Catholic and the
right evangelical Christian groups. That political unity appears to have
yielded another issue where they are in synch. The ID offensive is
a fairly coordinated social movement to push science aside for the
purpose of furthering religion through the public schools. (Even
more interesting, I suppose, is that Catholic schools, in the US at least, are
not changing their curricula in response to the Catholic statement, even though
it was apparently endorsed, or permitted and encouraged, by the Pope.)
Any thoughts on whether Pres Bush will try to use No Child Left Behind as a
base of power to force public schools to teach ID? Could the Bush
Administration put in place regulations under NCLB that would do as much?
It's also very interesting that this issue comes to the fore in the midst
of the Roberts nomination. Having chosen the business interests' favorite
candidate and gotten pilloried by some right Christian groups, Bush may well now
be placating those same groups.
Marci
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