Conservatives Against Intelligent Design
There is an interesting little movement going on in the blogosphere that has spawned some interesting conversation. Indian Cowboy has started a new blog: Conservatives Against Intelligent Design. With 229 signatories since its inception on May 27, it is gaining some attention. His mission statement?
Conservatives Against Intelligent Design (CAID) was founded to give a voice to Republicans, Independent Conservatives, and Libertarians across the country who stand opposed to the teaching of ‘intelligent design’ and other forms of creationism in the classroom. In recent years Republican legislators at all levels of government have authored, sponsored, and voted for various anti-evolution bills with perceived immunity, confident that those who vote for them are creationists like themselves. CAID is intended as a wake-up call to these legislators, to remind them that the teaching of evolution is not a partisan issue, but rather one of the separation between theology and science. (Read the rest here)
The resulting discussion has been interesting to follow. I'm not going to get into the science of either creationism or evolution in this entry, because, well, I doubt I could hold my own in the discussion. That and I've had enough of that particular debate and the colorful names I have been called. Dangerous Liberty touches on this issue a little. But I cannot help but wonder, what is the point? ID isn't taught in science class and the ACLU has been pretty effective at keeping it that way. In fact, states have had a hard time slipping critical analysis into their standards...this isn't teaching ID, just teaching students to question the theory of evolution. Court rulings, for the most part, have favored evoltuion over creation.

Here's my issue. Especially coming from a fellow libertarian-leaning, conservative type person. Education is not an issue for the central government to get involved in. The central government should not be advocating ANY curriculum for any school district in the country. NCLB has a lot of good things about it, so far as we are talking about school reform, but it is coming from the wrong source. These are local decisions. If California wants to teach Islam and evolution, that is its right under our nation's constitution. And if Kansas wants to ban evolution from its schools, that is its right.

Tucents provides some good analysis in his entry and the subsequent discussion in the comments box. He does a better job than I could during my week of "light blogging," so I encourage you to visit.

But this isn't just about public schools. If this movement were to gain momentum? Among conservatives? What view of homeschooling does this comment by Indian Cowboy present?

...Third, should children be allowed to be indoctrinated by their parents? While I agree that a child is the parent’s repsonsibility and (for instance) the parent has every right to keep them out of sex ed and stuff, do you not think that the outright lying, dissemination, and otherwise concealment of the truth from kids is not just as big a crime?

Fourth, mroe broadly on education. Parents aren’t saints. Children are not adults. Telling a child that his mommy and daddy are responsible for teaching him, then when he’s 18, telling him that no one’s going to help him fill the holes his parents’ shoddy job did strikes me as a bit silly. (not that i’m against homeschooling, just that there are a lot of parents who wouldn’t put any effort into it) Basically you’re saying you don’t care if the child is improperly educated for the first 18 years, at which point you’ll blame that child for the sins of his parents.

My answer? Uh, well, yes. The parents absolutely have the right to indoctrinate their own children. Whether that is in young earth creationism, evolution, alien seeding, Christianity, Wicca, views on homosexuality or Nazi-ism. Just look in our constitution. If this thinking is set as a precedent, private schools also would not be allowed to teach creation nor would homeschools. Who needs the UN and their Convention on the Rights of the Child?

And since when has the school system done a good job of properly educating children for their first 18 years? I think I'm with Tucents on this one. It is what makes a RINO (and I mean that with utmose respect and appreciation, Indian Cowboy...that's why I chose a cute little rhino and not a raging one).

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