...Evolution and Gay Marriage
So. Evolution. And gay marriage. What do these two things have in common?Well. They're both things that are opposed by the religious right. Usually for reasons that are very specifically religious, or at least they tend to make religious arguments. I could get back into the post I made a few months back saying that a lot of the anti-gay marriage people are looking to legislate comfort, but that's not the point of this.
Let's look at the similar path that both have been taking. In both cases, the opposition started by using religious motivations cloaked in secularism. This was a necessary step, because pure religious motivations fail something called the Lemon Test, the little thing that was set up by the Supreme Court many years ago saying that to maintain the separation of church and state, legislation cannot be entered into under purely religious motivations.
Of course, in the case of evolution, there was at the beginning no hiding the religious nature of the anti-evolutionist movement, as it came right out and called itself Creationism, and made no bones about being centered firmly in the writings of Genesis. That, however, was shot down in Edwards v Aguilard.
So, secular phrases were invented. In the case of gay marriage, the answer is trying to protect Family Values. In the case of creationism, it's been Creation Science, which turned into Intelligent Design.
In both cases, they have lost in the courts. Legislating against gay marriage and legislating in favor of intelligent design have both been hit with the big ole label of UNCONSTITUTIONAL by those pesky evil liberal activist judges. Especially Judges Jones, put on the bench by noted lefty George W. Bush.
Therefore, if something is unconstitutional, well, the next step is to rewrite the constitution. Which is what those foes of gay marriage have been able to do with frightening success throughout the United States. My own state of Virginia is going to be voting on a similar amendment in the near future, and I have no compunction that it's going to be anything but an unqualified success.
So why bring that up? Well...someone from the Intelligent Design camp has latched onto this idea. It's something that I fully expected to happen one day, but had always hoped I was just being cynical and paranoid about. However, there is a move underway to amend the constitution of the state of Nevada. Someone wants to put it to a vote of the people, and if successful, the constitution of the state of Nevada will include such Discovery Institution canards as that cells are too mathematically complex to have evolved. Or that there is a serious debate going on.
It worries me that something like this could be put in front of the voting public, because the voting public is mostly scientifically illeterate. Public opinion polls are often in favor of teaching the so-called controversy, or worse, not teaching evolution at all. But an amendment vote or a poll would be based on the biggest possible fallacy: the thought that science is a democratic process. It's not.
Hopefully this will go nowhere. But I'm damn scared that it will. And that it will be precident setting.
posted by thurdl @ 6:33:00 PM
266 comments
