THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
(apologies to Keith Olbermann)
IN State Senator Dennis Kruse (R-Jesusland)
Indiana’s Republican-controlled Senate yesterday passed a bill that would allow for the teaching of creationism in schools. The bill’s sponsor, Republican State Senator Dennis Kruse, tells the Indianapolis Star that he knows the Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional back in 1987, but so what? “This is a different Supreme Court,” he tells the paper. “This Supreme Court could rule differently.”
Yeah, so what? So the Supreme court ruled that teaching creationism in public schools violates the separation of church and state. And so what if teaching creationism means that government is advancing the interest of a particular religion, in this case Christianity? Just because that’s unconstitutional…well, what’s the Constitution but a piece of paper, right? Did Jesus have to respect and obey the Constitution?
When last I checked, America wasn’t a theocracy. The fact of the matter is that America is NOT a Christian country; it’s a secular country with a Christian majority. That may seems like semantics to some, but the difference is anything but subtle. In the first example, you could easily have a faction, say the American Taliban, using government to enforce their narrow morality and world view…which is exactly what they want to do The second means that government is areligious, even though 80% of Americans profess to be Christians. It means that governments works for ALL Americans, not just to advance the interests of Conservative Christians.
Dennis Kruse represents a faction of Conservative Christians who believe that the Constitution can be selectively interpreted to support their narrow agenda- in this case the teaching of creationism in Indians schools.
Senator Kruse is also pushing a bill to allow schools to open the day with the Lord’s Prayer. As with his creationism bill, he’s slipping religion into the classroom under the flag of choice, but that choice only goes so far. The school district gets to decide whether to “require” that creationism be taught.
The truly sad aspect of this sorry episode it that it demonstrates that here in America, too often Christians are nothing like their Christ. I don’t hate Christianity, but can you understand why I’m scared of His fan club?
