Unconstitutional Design

Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher advocated teaching "intelligent design" in his State of the Commonweath speech last night. "This is not a question about faith or religion," the governor said. "It's about self-evident truth."

Well, not exactly. But you couldn't necessarily tell that from the reaction of Kentucky's Democratic leader in the General Assembly, Rep. Jody Richards. "It is an issue for local school boards," Richards said. "They can make whatever decision they want to do." The problem is, intelligent design is not science, Darwin's theory of evolution is not mutually exclusive with religious faith, and teaching intelligent design has been ruled an unconstitutional effort to impose religion on public schools. Last month a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled that intelligent design is, in fact, religion and that local school board's efforts to force its teaching in public schools violates the First Amendment. For extensive quotes from the judge's ruling, look here (and thanks to fellow blogger Kentucky Kurmudgeon for providing the info). While this ruling applies directly only to the circuit that includes Pennsylvania and nearby states, it will be a powerful precedent for future lawsuits. Kentucky school boards should not heed the governor's advice because intelligent design is not science and imposing religion on others is unconstitutional and un-American.

Besides, since Darwin's time, thoughtful people of faith have found no conflict between their belief in God and the scientific fact of evolution, and have found no need to force the connection on others. "Christian faith seeks understanding, as St. Anselm put it," Ted Peters, theologian and author of Evolution from Creation to New Creation, wrote recently. "Historically, Christians have fallen in love with science. Faith loves science. Today, the Christian faith demands that our schools teach the best science, and only the best science. To teach inferior science would be stupid and, yes, irreligious."

Amen.