Bill of Rights Heroes
Ivins, Molly
Small Favors Molly Ivins Bill of Rights Heroes So here I sit in the capital of the Great State, working on a book about some heroes I have met over the years who make the Bill of Rights more...
...While the plaintiffs were attacked as atheists and Walczak and the other attorneys described as outside agitators bringing trouble to River City, they set out to put an end to the teaching of “intelligent design...
...He also supported a board policy that required all students to listen to a faith-based disclaimer before studying biology...
...And the pi?ce de r?sistance, as ACLUers in Texas say: A week before Christmas, the school board of Cobb County, Georgia, which had been placing anti-evolution stickers on biology textbooks, capitulated...
...Yes, that’s Fort Worth, Texas...
...They called Witold Walczak of the Pennsylvania chapter of the ACLU...
...Her latest book is “Who Let the Dogs In...
...Now I’m a devout believer in postvictory gloating, particularly when it involves upholding our Bill of Rights...
...So let us gloat...
...Then Jessica Kitzmiller’s mama said no...
...Who says we can’t be cheerful and joyous...
...It particularly bothered the judge, who was appointed by George W., that several devout Christians on the Dover board, “who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and time again lie to cover their tracks and the real purpose behind the ID Policy...
...Settling a lawsuit filed by parents of some brave students in the district, the school board agreed to remove their anti-evolution stickers from biology textbooks and to refrain from any other interference with the teaching of biology in the future...
...Two lied under oath, though they did not swear on the Bible, which might have made a difference...
...He ruled the teaching of intelligent design unconstitutional and the disclaimer read to biology students illegal...
...Molly Ivins writes in this space every month...
...Since he handed down his opinion a year ago, binding only in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, not a single school board in the nation has succeeded in adopting intelligent design for its biology curriculum...
...And the board president set his sights on a new American history curriculum, another Texas product, which emphasizes God’s active role in the American Revolution—baptizing after the fact all our Founding Fathers...
...Walczak had already been contacted by Dover high school teachers, recognized the perfect mix of fact and law and brought suit...
...Forms of life,” argued one designer on the witness stand, “began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact, fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings...
...They took on the overzealous Christian members of the Dover, PA, Board of Education, who had decided the evolution chapter in their high school biology textbook was “laced with Darwinism...
...They were up against local public opinion, the Dover school board, and the Thomas More Law Center, which describes itself as the “sword and shield of people of faith . . . defending the religious freedom of Christians...
...After six weeks of trial and a month of deliberation, Judge John E. Jones III handed down a sweeping opinion...
...Small Favors Molly Ivins Bill of Rights Heroes So here I sit in the capital of the Great State, working on a book about some heroes I have met over the years who make the Bill of Rights more than just dead words on old parchment...
...As did Casey and Jeff Brown, and other parents and taxpayers living in the hardscrabble little town of Dover...
...As did Barrie and Fred Callahan...
...Of Pandas and People advanced the utterly unscientific notion that evolution never happened (after all, it’s only a theory...
...The superintendent suggested that students also be taught that space aliens might have brought life to our planet, to balance intelligent design and evolution...
...They had no complaint about Newtonism in the physics text...
...Everyone in Dover seemed to have gone round the bend...
...He brought in Eric Rothschild of the Philadelphia offices of Pepper Hamilton, along with lawyers for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State...
...The biblical literalists on the Dover board went out and found a supplementary biology textbook published by creationists in Fort Worth...
...One group of heroes resides in the rural corner of Pennsylvania known as Pennsatucky...
Vol. 71 • February 2007 • No. 2
