Where Are Oklahoma’s Intellectual Freedom Fighters?

The Sally Kern Cult Club

A bill that will allow neocreationism to be taught in Oklahoma schools has passed through the House without major dissent. This is extremely discouraging news for our state.

Not one Oklahoma politician has come out forcefully and presented counter legislation that would stop the religious freaks from embarrassing our state, damaging our economy by branding us with the “ignorant hick” logo, and turning our schools into quasi-churches.

Not one Oklahoma politician in this state has stepped up and said “enough is enough,” championing the cause of intellectualism and rationalism and logic and medical science, the hallmarks of modernity and enlightenment.

Not one Oklahoma politician has said figuratively and loudly to our college graduates now leaving the state in droves that the fight for intellectual freedom can be waged even in one of the reddest of red states.

Here is the bottom line: State Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City) and a few other right-wing politicians, including some Democrats, are on a Christian crusade to ensure we bow down to their narrow-minded, medieval worldviews. Her legislation, House Bill 2107, would allow teachers to present intelligent design “theory,” or neocreationism, in courses dealing with “biological or chemical origins of life.”

The Okie theocrats are emboldened by a presidential administration that sanctions religious intrusion in government institutions.

If the bill, which passed on a lopsided 77-10 vote, makes it all the way through the legislature and is signed into law, many Oklahoma students will be taught creationism instead of evolution and scientific principles. It is that simple.

Kern says the bill does not address religion, but everyone knows its intention is to challenge evolution with a “scientific” version of the Biblical creation story. Kern has to distort and lie to get the bill passed for legal and political reasons. She lies and distorts because her own religious views apparently allow deceitfulness and thus immorality in evangelizing. In my view, this immoral evangelizing makes Kern’s brand of religion a cult.

One Democrat who voted in favor of the bill said that if legislators voted against the measure, “…people will see this vote as a vote for evolution and against God,” according to a story in The Daily Oklahoman.

Intelligent design theory, or neocreationism, which is advanced only by fundamentalist Christians, argues the natural world is so complicated it had to be created by a designer, or, wink, wink, the Christian God. Evolution makes no claims about religion. It argues the natural world, as we can observe it, has evolved or changed over time. Evolutionary science remains the foundation of modern medical science and the scientific principle.

(Check out the excellent cover article, “Holy War,” in this week’s Oklahoma Gazette. The article gives an overview of the issue of religious intrusion in Oklahoma’s government institutions.)

University of California Professor Robert Bellah, the noted sociologist of religions, recently said, “It’s as if the Scopes trial is never over—we’re back in the 1920s. It’s unbelievable. And, again, it’s so depressing because you could not find anything like this in any other advanced country in the world. What has happened in this country?”

Well, what has happened in Oklahoma is that not enough intellectuals (professors, doctors, teachers, writers, corporate managers, medical professionals, lawyers, etc.) have the guts to stand up for what is right and moral and life affirming.

I ask those enlightened Oklahoma people who are sitting this out on the sidelines: When will it be too late to speak up? What are you waiting for?

(At least check out the Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education site and sign the online petition.)

Bush Should Be Impeached
Okie Funk keeps it local, but on occasion it behooves us to speak out on a national topic. This is one such occasion.
Salon.com has an excellent article on the growing movement in this country to impeach President George Bush. He has committed major impeachable offenses at least three times. 1. He lied the country into a war we have now lost at the expense of thousands upon thousands of innocent lives and billions of dollars. This is the most previous offense a president can commit. 2. He sanctioned the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bayin violation of America laws and the Geneva Conventions 3. He ordered illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

These are serious, major offenses that threaten the democratic structure of county. As I and others have argued for months now, there must be some type of reconciliation, some type of reckoning, for Bush’s lies and illegal actions or our country could be operated by totalitarian governments in the future.

For some Republicans, especially the ultra-rich and the Christian fundamentalists, Bush’s disregard for the law might seem convenient now, but political tides do change. Once this disregard for law is embedded in the country’s political structure what we will have is one junta after another running the country through illegal executive directives without any congressional checks and balances.

It is really quite serious. In fact, it may be too late.
In a recent meeting of impeachment advocates in New York, there was much talk about why to impeach but little talk about how to impeach. That is because the political climate right now in Washington, D.C. is not conducive to it. Yet that does not mean we should get discouraged and drop the idea. If we give up we lose the democratic ideals and vision that have made America up until now the great, world bastion of hope and freedom.