Reply #58: Bull. People can home school their children, and often do.

[Warren DeMontague]

According to your 'reasoning', if I can call it that, nothing that conflicts with anyone's so-called "religious beliefs" can be taught in public schools. And while I respect your seeming aim of accomodating people's opinions, there ARE such things as agreed upon scientific FACTS. The Earth is not flat. Objects do not fall up. If you wish really hard over your cat's litter box, it will not turn into a bowl full of Neapolitan ice cream. To argue otherwise is to argue that the entire BODY of western scientific thought be jettisoned overboard.

It's not "harsh intolerance" to argue, forcefully, that science not compromise its standards just because a small minority of religious extremists might be unwittingly exposed to the truth. I'm curious as to why it's so important to you to stand up for these folks and echo lies about how merely having a secular government and legitimate science taught in public schools amounts to 'discrimination' and 'bigotry'.

Who has declared war on who? You say 'no one is forcing anyone into gay marriage or stem cell research'.. that's right. But the same far right 'bible literalist' crowd are perfectly happy to try to impose THEIR beliefs on everyone else through the law and the public square. Many of them would like to see gay people put to death, not just forbidden from getting married. They're plenty happy to try to criminalize abortion, ban the birth control pill, or lecture rape victims at pharmacies when they're trying to get emergency contraception prescriptions filled. How nice of you to look out for their interests when their kids might be exposed to the idea that the sun is a ball of thermonuclear
hydrogen, as opposed to a giant group of orange angels singing hosannas to Jesus.

These folks cling to a belief system that is in open conflict with what we KNOW about reality. If they want to believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old and dinosaurs were on "Noah's Ark", that's their right- but they sure as shit don't have the right to redefine what everyone else's kids are taught in public school science class, just because it conflicts with their 'religion'. To even argue anything resembling that is just beyond absurd, particularly given the multitude of 'deeply held beliefs' that various people may have.

And no, I'm not worried about losing the votes of Bible literalists- those folks aren't voting for our people come hell or high water. And if teaching scientific FACT in public schools -schools that they're welcome to pull their kids out of- amounts to 'intolerance', too fucking bad.