The Santorum Plan is God's Plan

A group of evangelical and social conservative leaders recently voted to back the candidacy of Rick Santorum in the race for the GOP Presidential nomination. Is this support just a last attempt to stop front-runner Mitt Romney? Or is it an acknowledgment that Santorum's positions fit the beliefs of the more conservative element of the GOP? Santorum has unwaveringly opposed same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, abortion, partial-birth abortion, contraception, global warming and evolution. Here are Santorum's positions on these issues:

Same-Sex Marriage

"And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing."

Adoption by same-sex couples

"The state is not doing a service to the child and to society by not putting that child in a home where there is a mother and a father. This is common sense. This is nature. Even fathers in jail who had abandoned their kids were still better than no father at all to have in their children's lives."

Abortion

"I believe that any doctor that performs an abortion, I would advocate that any doctor that performs an abortion, should be criminally charged for doing so."

And on debating the partial-birth abortion ban in 1996, Santorum said: “Mr. President, I just need to restate, we have quoted physician after physician, obstetrician after obstetrician, pro-life, pro-choice, people who have performed abortions—this is not Rick Santorum or James Inhofe or Mike DeWine or Bob Smith—these are physicians, obstetricians, who are saying that this procedure is never, never, never medically necessary to save the health or life of the mother. Never. Never.”

Even though Santorum has previously testified that there are no circumstances where abortion is necessary to protect the life of the mother, his wife Karen had a second trimester abortion in October 1996. The Santorums were told that if she did not induce her labor, she and the baby would more than likely die. The decision was made to induce labor, and abort the fetus. However, the Rick and Karen don't call it an abortion. Rather, they refer to it as a "medically induced miscarriage."

Partial-birth abortion

"This isn’t taught in any medical school. It isn’t done in any hospital. It isn’t done by any obstetrician. This is a rogue procedure for the convenience and economic benefit of abortionists and abortion clinics. Of course, it is not medically necessary. It is not even medically recognized."

Contraception

Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.

Global Warming

"I believe the earth gets warmer, and I also believe the earth gets cooler, and I think history points out that it does that and that the idea that man through the production of CO2, which is a trace gas in the atmosphere and the man-made part of that trace gas is itself a trace gas, is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd when you consider all of the other factors, El Niño, La Niña, sunspots, you know, moisture in the air."

Evolution

"What we should be teaching are the problems and holes and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution. And what we need to do is to present those fairly from a scientific point of view. And we should lay out areas in which the evidence supports evolution and the areas in the evidence that does not."

Santorum's position against evolution has made him the 'King of creationism.' Santorum believes that what he believes, should be taught to all those who do believe or don't believe, what he believes. That is because Santorum believes that this is God's plan. Rick Santorum wants to replace the teaching of real science with creationism.

Since January 1st, three state legislatures in Missouri, Indiana, and New Hampshire have all introduced bills that would force schools to teach creationism as an accepted science even if students, parents, and teachers are not Christians. Such bills infringe upon religious freedom as protected by the United States Constitution. Since 2004, 12 states have tried to pass creationism bills. Only one, in Louisiana, has become law. You may be wondering, where did all of these bills come from?

It turns out, all creationism bills introduced since 2004 are inspired by an amendment drafted and proposed by then Senator and current Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum in 2001. Santorum offered the amendment to be included in the No Child Left Behind Act. The amendment, which failed, promoted the teaching of intelligent design and questioned the academic standing of evolution in US public schools. Santorum didn’t craft the language of the bill by himself, however. He had help from Phillip E. Johnson of the Center for Science and Culture which is run by a conservative think tank known as Discovery Institute. Johnson is the founding adviser of the Center and is considered the founder of the intelligent design movement. He is also known as a member of the group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis, a prominent AIDS denialist group and has written that HIV does not cause AIDS, which explains why many religious extremists make such claims.

The amendment would have allowed schools and teachers to dispute evolution which the scientific community regards as the only credible, and thoroughly tested, scientific explanation for the development and diversification of all life on Earth. But people like Santorum, Johnson and other religious extremists want to replace the teaching of real science with creationism, a Biblical theory that is classified as pseudo-science by an overwhelming majority of scientists. There is no evidence supporting creationism, whereas plenty of evidence exists to support evolution.

So the next time you read a headline about a new creationism bill being introduced in a state, you’ll know exactly where the bill came from and who is responsible for trying to force religion upon our children.

Given his positions on social issues, Bruce Epperly ponders whether Santorum is the "Jesus candidate."
At least his wife, Karen, thinks so.

For me it’s not just another political race. It’s about going on to the battlefield and defending God’s truth in the World.

The Shadow of the Past in the Present

The Scopes "Monkey Trial"
Tennessee vs John Scopes

Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan during the trial

This Week in History notes that in 1925, John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. Scopes, a football coach and substitute high school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, agreed to be arrested and put on trial for teaching evolution. He was challenging the legitimacy of a four-day-old state law barring Darwin’s theory from the public school curriculum.

In 1995, the Washington Post had an article indicating that "policymakers in 19 states are weighing proposals that question the science of evolution."

The growing trend has alarmed scientists and educators who consider it a masked effort to replace science with theology. But 80 years after the Scopes "monkey" trial -- in which a Tennessee man was prosecuted for violating state law by teaching evolution -- it is the anti-evolutionary scientists and Christian activists who say they are the ones being persecuted, by a liberal establishment.

They are acting now because they feel emboldened by the country's conservative currents and by President Bush, who angered many scientists and teachers by declaring that the jury is still out on evolution.

The chart below is from 1997. It shows Where (and How) Evolution is Taught in the US. This map is taken here from the website Science Against Evolution, which quite cleverly tries to win the debate for creation by arguing that the theory of evolution itself has been discredited by scientific evidence and by numerous scientists. However, the map is drawn up by a proponent of evolution, as can be deduced from the remarks on the map and even its colours (green is good, red is bad).

Scientists generally accept the theory of evolution as the back-story of how animal species (including humans) came into being over a period of several billion years. Religious literalists maintain their belief in creation, as laid down in the Bible: God made the earth and all that is on it (including humans, after His own image) in one week, a couple of thousand years ago.

These are the extreme positions in a debate that has been raging for years now in the United States, and more particularly in the school system. Since each state can determine what should be in the local schools’ curriculum, the teaching of evolution and/or creation differs throughout the country. Yet contrary to what one might think, it’s not so that creation is taught in the Bible Belt states (in the South), and evolution in more liberal states (everywhere else).

The map first appeared in 2002 in Scientific American, and was based on data collected by Lawrence S. Lerner of California State University at Long Beach.

In 2005, NPR reported on Teaching Evolution: A State-by-State Debate.

School boards and legislatures across the country are continuing to debate how to teach students about the origins of life on Earth. Policymakers in at least 16 states are currently examining the controversy.

In some states, advocates of "intelligent design" -- the theory that an intelligent force had a role to play in the creation of the universe -- are pushing for the concept to be taught side-by-side with evolution. In other states, schools are incorporating the idea that evolution is "theory, not fact."

In March of 2009, CNN reported that Texas Board of Education had to deal with a controversy in new science standards.

The debate pitted proponents of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution against supporters of religion-based theories of intelligent design, or creationism.

A final 13-2 vote approved language that will be printed in textbooks beginning in 2011 and remain there for 10 years, CNN affiliate KPRC-TV in Houston reported:

"In all fields of science, analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental observation and testing, including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those explanations so as to encourage critical thinking by the students."

An interesting article from The Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life is on Religious Groups' Views on Evolution.

The Pew Forum also published an article in 2009 titled, Fighting Over Darwin, State by State. The article notes action in 14 states in which the teaching of evolution has stirred controversy.

So if evolution is as established as the theory of gravity, why are people still arguing about it a century and a half after it was first proposed? (See Evolution: A Timeline...from 1809 -2007) The answer lies, in part, in the possible theological implications of evolutionary thinking. For many, the Darwinian view of life - a panorama of brutal struggle and constant change - goes beyond contradicting the biblical creation story and conflicts with the Judeo-Christian concept of an active and loving God who cares for his creation.

But while theologians, historians and others argue over evolution's broader social impact, the larger and more intense debate still centers on what children in public schools learn about life's origins and development. Indeed, the teaching of evolution has become a part of the nation's culture wars, manifest most recently in the 2008 presidential campaign, particularly in the attention paid to Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's statements in favor of public schools teaching creation science or intelligent design along with evolution. And while evolution may not attain the same importance as such culture war issues as abortion or same-sex marriage, the topic is likely to have a place in national debates on values for many years to come.

The debate continues.