I love it when judges smack down the fundamentalists. It happens so infrequently that it’s especially gratifying when it does happen. In this case, a judge saw through the transparent creationism lurking behind a Georgia school board’s “evolution warning stickers,” (see parodies here) and ruled that they unconstitionally crossed the line separating church and state.
“The school board has effectively improperly entangled itself with religion by appearing to take a position,” Cooper wrote. “Therefore, the sticker must be removed from all of the textbooks into which it has been placed.”
In fact, given the recent spate of stories about “people of faith” putting their smug (and sometimes evil-hearted) interpretations on the random chaos wrought by the Asian tsunami, you might be forgiven for feeling–as I increasingly do–that religion is good for little more than muddling the minds of humankind and turning people against one another. Who could possibly have the gall to suggest that a neighbor’s children were drowned by a giant wave because they didn’t believe in the right religion? In light of this kind of nonsense, even William Safire seems reasonable and compassionate.
