Seattle Creationist parent gets local School Board to ban Al Gore's movie (or show opposing view)

[LynneSin]

You know what kills me - this is ONE parent pushing the school board to ban this movie (or require a creationist movie is also showed). One parent is forcing the entire school board to dumb down the entire school population. Bad enough this parent has 7 kids he's dumbing down, but now he's doing it to the rest of the school too!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/299253_inconvenient11.html?source=mypi

Federal Way schools restrict Gore film

'Inconvenient Truth' called too controversial

Thursday, January 11, 2007

By ROBERT MCCLURE AND LISA STIFFLER
P-I REPORTERS

This week in Federal Way schools, it got a lot more inconvenient to show one of the top-grossing documentaries in U.S. history, the global-warming alert "An Inconvenient Truth."

After a parent who supports the teaching of creationism and opposes sex education complained about the film, the Federal Way School Board on Tuesday placed what it labeled a moratorium on showing the film. The movie consists largely of a computer presentation by former Vice President Al Gore recounting scientists' findings.

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

Hardison's e-mail to the School Board prompted board member David Larson to propose the moratorium Tuesday night.

"Somebody could say you're killing free speech, and my retort to them would be we're encouraging free speech," said Larson, a lawyer. "The beauty of our society is we allow debate."

School Board members adopted a three-point policy that says teachers who want to show the movie must ensure that a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented," that they must get the OK of the principal and the superintendent, and that any teachers who have shown the film must now present an "opposing view."

<<<snip>>>

Students contacted Wednesday said they favor allowing the movie to be shown.

[Kutjara]

1. It's that framing trick again.

Take some utter mushbrained crap like creationism and pit it against a reality-based theory and - hey presto! - you've legitimized the mushbrained crap by association.

When that slimy lawyer Larson said "The beauty of our society is we allow debate," that isn't what he meant at all. What he meant, was "Hey! We've got Jeebus back on the curriculum! Hallelujah!"

I hope when we're all treading water in 120 degree heat, we can round up the crazies who keep looking in the Bible for every answer and roast them on spits.

[Skittles]

2. well put

I wish people would keep their delusions in church and out of school

[Selatius]

4. It's a favorite trick of the disingenuous.

For instance, take the Iraq War.

"Fair and Balanced" would have a pro-war chickenhawk from the Heritage Foundation on vs. another pro-war chickenhawk who is merely criticizing the conduct of the war, not whether there should even be a damn war. That is how they frame it. Notice there is no anti-war voice there.

To put it another way, it's like two rapists arguing with one saying he rapes any way he wants while the other objects to raping the women if the raping is employing an "improper technique."

[zeemike]

9. And it is not just Fox News

I watched PBS Margret Warner who had 4 commentators one was Rethug Heather wilson of NM who wa kind of against the war strategy but not the war, And Joe Lieberman Democrat, who...well you know where he stands, and a rethug who was all for the war and more of it, and a Democrat who managed not to say anything at all that I could tell.
It seemed well crafted to make one think the surge was just an unimportant detail in a necessary war.

[Pab Sungenis]

38. Do they need to get an opposing point of view

when they show "The Diary of Anne Frank?"

This is censorship, pure and simple.

[electprogdems]

41. or at least use that law that does not allow criminals

to profit from their crimes, and pro-actively take back any and all monies made from the denial industry (including any that was inherited), and put it toward solutions.

[Selatius]

3. Someone want to go out there and find a "credible" opposing view to Gore's flick?

Unless all those fucking graphs of CO2 rising happen to be upside down, I don't think anybody has a leg to stand on with respect to disproving the evidence of rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere or those pictures of melting glaciers. You might--I say might--have a chance by arguing that we are not sure global warming is being caused by humans or if it is a natural cycle of events, but you have nothing if you try to argue there is no global warming.

[Kutjara]

6. You underestimate the cunning of fundie fuckheads.

When global warming finally hits us with an unambiguous sledgehammer and America turns into another Sahara (only not quite so cool and pleasant), the religious nuts will turn right around and play their trump card: God's will. This Seattle parent already has the lingo down pat. Look at his comment about how things have to get very hot so the End Times will come. The fruitcakes have already worked global warming into their fairytale.

For them, the death of our enviroment, like the war in Iraq, are all part of the great End of Days Technicolor Extravangza!

Fundies may be a lot of things but they are never, ever, wrong. What happens is always the way God intended it, so who are we to try to change anything?

[Toots]

17. There have been over nine hundred peer reviewed articles in accepted scientific

forums. Not a single one has denied either that Global Warming exists or that man has a role in it. Not one. There is no opposing view that is credible. The debate is over. I would suggest they need an opposing view for the theory of gravity or the atomic theory as well... Science is science and facts or facts. There is no opposing view....There may be some difference of opinions between political groups but they are not credible either.

[depakid]

26. That doesn't prevent the far right and their enablers from lying about it

Over and over-

See, e.g.

An Op-Ed article in the Wall Street Journal a month ago claimed that a published study affirming the existence of a scientific consensus on the reality of global warming had been refuted. This charge was repeated again last week, in a hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

I am the author of that study, which appeared two years ago in the journal Science, and I'm here to tell you that the consensus stands. The argument put forward in the Wall Street Journal was based on an Internet posting; it has not appeared in a peer-reviewed journal — the normal way to challenge an academic finding. (The Wall Street Journal didn't even get my name right!)

My study demonstrated that there is no significant disagreement within the scientific community that the Earth is warming and that human activities are the principal cause.

Papers that continue to rehash arguments that have already been addressed and questions that have already been answered will, of course, be rejected by scientific journals, and this explains my findings. Not a single paper in a large sample of peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 refuted the consensus position, summarized by the National Academy of Sciences, that "most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0724-28.htm

[LynneSin]

27. 900+ scientists vs. 1 God

and I'm a Christian but although I believe the 900+ scientists when someone is that wrapped up in Jesus they'll stick with the 1 God first.

[Bjorn Against]

36. But God never said there was no such thing as global warming

This is not God saying in anything, it is a bunch of nutcases who claim they talk to God who are saying that there is no global warming. I will believe the 900+ scientists over someone who claims they talk to God any day.

[lligrd]

5. For Gawds Sake

These people really want to take us back to when the world was flat. What the Hell is wrong with them? Do they really surmise that God wants us to be stupid?

[neoblues]

7. The beauty of our society is we allow debate...

Sure, but there really is such a thing as counterproductive or obstructive or simply a waste of time debate. Indeed, one might even say 'stupid' debate.

Sure, there are people who think as you do, but whatever the case, your view is not science and neither belongs in a public school's science curriculum nor should it prevent the school from teaching what actually is relevant science. The information provided by Inconvenient Truth is very strong, honest and presents a coherent conclusion that everyone should be exposed to.

Alas, you yourself represent an inconvenient truth; that there are those who would refuse to believe the truth regardless of the evidence and that such people are liable to both avoid considering it themselves and seek to prevent others from seeing it as well, out of fear that their own beliefs aren't strong enough to compete. Demanding equal coverage of an unequal concept; there are people's who have any number of cultural teachings (we would call myths) about the creation of the world, surely they deserve "equal" coverage too? Perhaps in some other coursework, but not in Science.

It seems that a noticable and vocal minority of Americans has become activist with regard to their religious conclusions. To a rational, non-theist, this seems like considerable numbers of those who already operate under the illusion of religion have gone insane--suppressing the knowledge mankind has gained by using his intelligence (wherever it came from) in favor of the stories in their religious text--despite the fact that it's clear that those texts, in many cases, are either literally wrong or have been misinterpreted over the centuries.

Alas, it's not nice (pc) to question people's "religious" beliefs (and given the large number of "believers" in the U.S., that stance shouldn't be any surprise). So much for modern, educated, rational, enlightened humankind in America.

[Hippo_Tron]

8. ROFL, "In the end times everything will burn up"

She should try using some of the critical thinking skills that god gave her next time she reads her bible. It wasn't meant to be interpreted literally for a reason.

[zeemike]

11. Actually that is one point where the bible and science agree

The biblical story is like this;
Jesus returns in time to stop a catastrophe where no flesh would be left on the earth. Sets up his kingdom that lasts a thousand years.
Then New Jerusalem descends out of the sky (Described as a cube 5000 miles across) and picks up all the worthy people on the earth and takes them to a new heaven and earth, and then the earth is cast into the lake of fire.
Science says that the Sun when it has used up it's fuel will become a red giant star and will expand to beyond the orbit of mars. So the earth will be consumed by fire. On that one point they agree, but it is the science fiction story the bible tells that is not believed.

[xchrom]

10. lol -- this is about debate? free speech?

free speech is when i say bush is another hitler -- and you say i'm nuts, boxer is stalin.

crushing talk, study, investigations about the facts of GLOBAL WARMING is not free speech or debate.

it's the opposite -- it's an extreme form of censorship.

[Clark2008]

12. Question: How is creationism a differing viewpoint on global

warming?

Al Gore's movie doesn't speak much to evolution - it does some, but that's not the "gist" of the film. It's a movie about weather patterns. It's a movie about Ice Ages and warming trends. It's a movie about the Greenhouse Effect and trade winds, etc.

It's NOT a movie about Darwin or evolution or anything of that nature (although, it does speak to the fact that the Earth is older than 6,000 years).

How in God's name (no pun intended) is showing a movie about creationism the "opposing" viewpoint? Looks like an opposing viewpoint would be to have some schmuck on there who couldn't pass a peer review talking about how global warming isn't really occurring.

I must be missing something here. :shrug:

P.S. Both Al Gore and I (and millions of others) happen to believe in God, btw, but we both can accept that the Bible speaks figuratively and accept the science of what is happening.

[unpossibles]

14. exactly. I'm sure they can find a study funded by Big Oil

or perhaps just run those commercials from last year that showed how we can't have life without CO2. :eyes:

I get so sick of this. I like the next posters idea of telling the school board to find opposite views of everything - you know, math where 2+2=7, a square has no parallel sides or right angles, and "rational" is not a word.

[dsc]

18. There are forms of geometry that have no parallel lines

just saying.

[charlie]

19. That include squares? n/t

[Donald Ian Rankin]

29. Sort of.

If you define a square as being "a shape consisting of four points linked by lines, such that each line is of the same length, and all four angles are equal" and then construct one in Riemmanian geometry (think "on the surface of a sphere") then all the "parallel" sides will meet.

[charlie]

32. Right, sort of

You get something analogous to a square, but isn't, unless you broaden the definition to include it. In any case, unpossibles' (fitting nym for this discussion, eh?) square with no parallels and no right angles is a good example of absurdity.

[LynneSin]

28. In the movie, several times Al Gore shows time lines of historical warming periods

that reach back way beyond the 14K years that most creationists believe only exist.

[Quantess]

52. It's possible that Mr. Frosty Hardison is also a champion polluter.

I don't know how he makes a living, but the Tacoma area is fairly industrial. The truth may be more inconvenient than he lets on. :shrug:

[Crunchy Frog]

13. If I were a parent there, and this one gets what he wants,

I think I'd force the school to present a "credible, legitimate opposing view" to every single thing that was being taught.

Let them know that if they take this tack, there will be no half measures. There's a "credible, legitimate opposing view" of just about anything you can imagine. Why should this particular one be singled out?

[Vodid]

16. 2 + 2 = 5

It's my belief, and it deserves equal consideration in school textbooks.

[depakid]

25. Organic Mercury isn't poisonous

According to former Congressman Richard Pombo and his buddy Nevada Republican Jim Gibbons, this is true!

So we MUST teach it- or else not teach kids about poisons in their fish- or that it's caused by burning filthy coal.

http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2005/02/24/little-mercury/

[Gelliebeans]

46. Exactly

Maybe if the board was forced to have an opposing point of view on every subject they would realize just how ridiculous this request is.

[Shadrach]

15. Embarrassing

"...said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old."

It's embarrassing that this kind of mentality exists in 21st century America!

[gollygee]

20. "Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore" ????

What the hell is that connection about?

[unpossibles]

21. I guess they'd rather see their kids screw up their lives

than face any possible real consequences of their actions?

I don't know.

[proud2BlibKansan]

49. Sounds like they want their kids to get pregnant

and destroy the environment at the same time.

[depakid]

22. My solution recall the members of the school board

This is showing extremely bad judgment- which along with the citations to serial and data forger liar John Stossel that one of the Board members made, shows that they're simply not fit to serve.

This He/She said shit isn't about "free speech," it's about degrading science and producing another generation of incompetent students. Washington State parents and student deserves much better than this.

It's embarrassing. Just ask the people of Harrisburg Pennsylvania.

[LynneSin]

30. They need to do a Dover School Board on that board in Seattle

The Dover School Board tried to force creationism on the students - next election all but one was booted out of office. The only one who wasn't booted out happened to not be up for re-election

[siligut]

23. Al Gore directly debunks the fundie arguments in the film.

One of the points Gore makes is that the people who do not want to believe that global warming exists, say that there has always been variations in temperature, he then goes on to effectively demonstrate how what is happening isn’t just a cyclical variation.

Gore also gives a profound truth, that if a person’s salary is dependant upon a person not seeing something, that person probably won’t see it. This is what the fundies don’t want their kids to know and Gore says it with such intelligence, I am sure it would have an impact.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

24. While he's clearly a nutjob, I'm afraid I think he's (coincidentally) right.

"An inconvenient truth" shouldn't be used in schools as an educational material on global warming, not because of anything to do with the content but because it's made by Al Gore.

Showing a video by someone who may yet be running for President in 2008, in which he puts his case on something which will be a key *political* issue in that campaign, is not politically neutral.

If someone else were to have made a shot-for-shot identical movie then I think showing it in schools without an "opposing voice" might well be perfectly reasonable (although I haven't seen it), though.

"Global warming" is science, not politics, and doesn't need to be "balanced" by anything. "Al Gore talks about global warming" is inevitably political, though.

Imagine that a Republican politician - John McCain, say, or Santorum - had made a (perfectly good, and apolitical) video for use as a resource teaching basic maths, featuring them doing lots of talking. It would not, in my view, be an acceptable material for use in schools.

There are plenty of excellent resources on global warming out there not made by politicians.

[unpossibles]

56. honestly, I do not have a problem with the idea of someone from another party

teaching something as long as it is backed up by studies and science (where applicable).

Every teacher has his/her own bias, and it's not all liberal despite what Rush tells people. I know what you're saying - that it gives the appearance of being one-sided and inappropriate, but I disagree.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

57. I don't think there's anywhere else safe you can draw the line except.

Different people have very different ideas of what is and isn't objectively true or "backed up by studies and science". There's no-one who can act as an impartial umpire.

The only fair approach is not to allow any politician to put a case for anything in state schools. Anything else leads to Newt Gingrich explaining in the classroom that the separation of Church and State is a modern invention the founding fathers would have disapproved of.

[Goblinmonger]

31. I wonder if she will challenge math classes, too

since the Bible tells us that Pi is exactly 3.0. And biology classes since bats are birds and rabbit chew their own cud.

Or, I'm just spitballing here, how about we stop looking to the bible for anything other than some nice metaphor and allegory.

[bridgit]

35. yeah, no shit, everyone knows 2+2 = 22...

:rofl:

[bridgit]

33. i love it!!! an "opposing view" to irrefutable truth...

:spray: that's just too funny :rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

34. Good job school. Job security for *my* kids.

[PVnRT]

37. On the other hand...

...where were the people in the community to oppose this?

This is an EXCELLENT reminder to people to get and stay involved in your local government.

[Norquist Nemesis]

39. Frosty??? It could have been resolved with permission slips

If "Frosty" doesn't 'approve', she can demand her children be stuck in the library during the showing. The school board should have just put a parent permission slip policy for this. Parents who don't want their kids participating can say no in "controversial" things like this.

I don't agree with parents who demand their stupid "beliefs" be foisted on everyone else, particularly when it comes to religious beliefs. If they disagree based on fact that's one thing. Disagreement that is based on faith is a whole different can of worms though. "Frosty" can continue to teach (brainwash, actually) her children for as long as they will allow her to do it as it's her parental prerogative. But she does not have the same prerogative for everyone else's kid.

[LynneSin]

44. First off Frosty is a man (can you believe it) and that's the best idea

If parents want to dumb down their kids, not much we can do about it. However, their opinion should not be held over the education of other kids in the school. I say show the movie and if any parent objects then they can either pull their kids from that particular class OR enroll them in Christian school

[Bigmack]

40. Twice I have posted on this forum...

... about this topic. I asked this question: Is there a comparable video resource refuting "Inconvenient Truth"?

No luck.

When I was teaching, I had debates about controversial subjects. I had seniors in HS, from a high socio-economic district, and the debates were always well informed and hard-fought. I was always willing to have the debates, because I knew that knowledge was better than opinion. (I don't know how debates would work in a different school level or district, but I do know Federal Way isn't pupil-ed by slugs.)

I'd have shown "Inconvenient Truth" and welcomed any opposing view.

Having said the above, my kids would have eaten Frosty Hardison alive.... and any video with those ignorant opinions.

Where are the opposing videos?

Donald Ian Rankin, I disagree with your post (#24) If you remove political figures from the schools, you remove reality, since politics is everywhere.

If somebody shows "Inconvenient Truth" they should be prepared to tackle the whole issue of whether the film is political or not. I personally would be eager to show McCain or anyone else who had a view different from "Truth".
If you show a video where Bush speaks (or whatever it is that he does) that's not politically neutral, either. I say, show the political stuff and let the kids learn.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

42. Seattle??? East Donkey Turd, Texas, maybe. But, Seattle??

I'm a Washingtonian and this is downright embarrassing.

[LynneSin]

45. That's what I thought when I read it

I'm thinking in a place like Washington, it should be easy to get the school board booted next election. Hell they did it in Dover, PA and that's getting into rural Pennsylvania

[Quantess]

53. Federal Way, to be precise.

More embarrassing for me, since I live in Federal Way!

[dysfunctional press]

43. what happens if there is NO "credible, legitimate opposing view ..."?

i am not aware of any such thing existing, in regard to "an inconvenient truth".

[PretzelzRule]

47. Just a minor point

for all those who may not be familiar with our area up here in the NW...Federal Way is NOT Seattle. It is a hellhole suburb 30 miles south of the city.

Frosty the Nutjob would not have even been able to get a hearing before the SEATTLE school board...fundies like him tend to stick to suburbs like Federal Way and avoid the big city of Seattle because we're EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL!!!!!!!!!!! :evilgrin:

[LynneSin]

51. Point taken - but school board can still be removed

If Dover School Board on the outskirts of rural Pennsylvania can boot their school board so can this one up in Washington State.

[PretzelzRule]

54. and I hope they do..n/t

[yurbud]

55. true in every city, even LA. Get far enough out in the burbs, and you run into the Clampetts PIC.

Granny just needs a bible to make this the perfect photo of the religious right.

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LynneSin]

50. First off, 900+ credible peer-related scientiests is where Gore gets his info

He's simple the mouthpiece used to relay that message to the public.

Second this isn't free speech, this is separation of church & state. The one parent wants to promote religious ideologies in a public school.

Finally there is another option - show the movie and let parents know the movie is being showed. Any parent that objects can have their kids excused for a study hall or something. Al Gore's movie is about scientist and creationism is nothing more than religious ideology. Even myself, also a lifetime Christian, can see the difference.