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May 21, 2008
'Expelled' Inspires Anti-Evolution Legislation
After a month, “Expelled”—the anti-evolution film starring Ben Stein—is fading from the scene with disappointing sales (although associate producer Mark Mathis says he’s pleased). The movie’s efforts to portray Intelligent Design creationism as a valid scientific field being persecuted by the authorities probably never had a chance with academics familiar with these dubious creationist arguments, but then again, it probably wasn’t the movie’s intention to convince scientists that ID was a legitimate scientific theory. Instead, “Expelled” took its battle against evolution to the political arena.
This was apparent in the film’s marketing strategy of reaching out to right-wing media outlets and activists, who embraced the half-baked Darwin-Hitler connection at the center of “Expelled.”
And—regarding the strange subplot of Yoko Ono suing over the film’s use of John Lennon’s song “Imagine” without getting the rights—a lawyer for the movie recently argued that the film’s message is pegged toward influencing this year’s presidential election, according to the AP:
A lawyer for the movie's distributors has warned that the litigation could wreck the movie's political message by preventing it from impacting viewers in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential campaign.
While it’s too early to say how creationism will figure into the presidential race, the political impact of “Expelled” can be seen more directly in state legislatures, with a rash of new legislation challenging science education in public high schools. “I think Expelled definitely has played a role,” said ID-advocate Casey Luskin of Discovery Institute.
According to the National Center for Science Education, anti-evolution bills were recently introduced in Florida, Missouri, and Alabama, but the legislative sessions in those states ended before the bills could pass. Versions in South Carolina and Michigan also appear to be stalled for now. But a bill in Louisiana to undermine classroom teaching on the topics of “evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning” was passed unanimously in the state Senate and has already passed through a committee in the House.
The major claim of “Expelled” is that scientists working to provide some—any—legitimacy to Intelligent Design are facing persecution. The stories told in the movie don’t seem to pan out, but as Stein and company are surely aware, the debate over creationism is not taking place at research universities but at school boards, state legislatures, and public high school science classes. A newly published survey of high school teachers found that 25 percent address creationism or Intelligent Design in the classroom, and 12 percent call creationism a “valid scientific alternative” to evolution. Ben Stein’s rants about Nazis seem unlikely to chance the basic course of scientific inquiry into the natural world, but the legacy of “Expelled” may be bills, like Louisiana’s, to put the supernatural world into the science classroom.
Posted by Ezra at 6:10 PM | Permalink
January 25, 2008
Faith-Based Earmarks
In September, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that Sen. David Vitter inserted an earmark into the federal budget to provide $100,000 to the Louisiana Family Forum, a Focus on the Family affiliate, apparently for the purpose of combating the teaching of evolution and global warming in public schools. Now the Kansas City Star is raising questions about whether earmarks from Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and Kit Bond (R-Missouri) are going to religious purposes:
Sens. Sam Brownback and Kit Bond used earmarks last year to direct about $1 million to an area group "empowering the un-churched urban poor for the kingdom of Christ."
On the surface, the taxpayer-supported appropriations for World Impact Inc. raise constitutional questions about the separation of church and state.
… Brownback, a Kansas Republican, and Bond, a Missouri Republican, note that World Impact does a lot of good for the urban poor in the region, with wanting to create an outreach and education center in St. Louis and running a ranch in central Kansas that is used as a "Christian training center for inner-city young men ages 18-25."
World Impact operates programs in several other states and received nearly $2 million in earmarks in the 2008 spending bill, according to a report last fall in Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper.
While recent rule changes have made the earmarking process a little more open, there is still far less scrutiny than to budget items that have been debated or the Bush administration’s own faith-based efforts. Still, the president of the World Impact charity assures us that “We are faith-based, but federal funds will be kept separate from our faith programs."
Posted by Ezra at 5:53 PM | Permalink
January 11, 2008
Pat Robertson: Bolshevism Behind Ruling Against Missionaries in Classroom
A federal judge ruled this week that the school district of rural Annapolis, Missouri could no longer let Gideons International hand out Bibles in an elementary school, and Pat Robertson is none too pleased. From yesterday’s “700 Club”:
According to Robertson, the ACLU doesn’t have enough to do since it lost its “raison d’etre,” Communism, and so now “they say their main goal is to take religion out of the public square.”
Robertson also complains that “one or two atheists can strip a whole community of its deeply-held religious views.” As a matter of fact, the parents who sued the school board are Christians, but in any event we expect Christianity to survive in eastern Missouri even without the local government working to convert fifth-graders.
The right-wing Liberty Counsel, which represented the school, plans to appeal.
Posted by Ezra at 5:33 PM | Permalink
January 3, 2008
State-Level Abortion Bans Head for 2008 Ballots
Activists are likely to place a far-reaching abortion ban on the Missouri ballot this year, one pegged to the emerging anti-abortion strategy of claiming to be protecting women. The Baltimore Sun reports:
If passed, it would stand as possibly the most restrictive abortion law in the country, requiring abortion providers to investigate each patient's background and lifestyle in order to certify that the woman was not coerced into the procedure.
Under the initiative, doctors would not be allowed to perform a nonemergency abortion unless they believed "the imminent death or serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman" would occur.
Critics say the proposal would expose doctors to lawsuits from women who later regretted their decisions to terminate pregnancies. …
Anti-abortion groups say the proposal would make Missouri a model for the country.
Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt laid groundwork last fall by forming a “task force” on “the impact of abortion on women,” a group composed of anti-abortion activists, and a major backer of the initiative is the Illinois-based Elliot Institute, whose founder was described as the “Moses” of the movement to define anti-choice as a defense of women’s interests, whether the women know it or not.
This tactic found validation in last year’s Supreme Court decision upholding the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban”—the court’s majority opinion seemed to echo the paternalist view, a point certainly not missed by any activists attempting to pass a far-reaching abortion ban.
But an initiative likely to reach the Colorado ballot takes a different approach: giving fertilized eggs equal protection and full rights under law. Playing the ingénue, the 20-year-old law student spearheading the amendment “insists her only aim is to define when human life begins, and any discussion about abortion is up to lawmakers.” Of course the “Human Life Amendment,” as it has been known since before she was born, was designed specifically to overturn Roe v. Wade and ban abortion completely.
The hard-line approach of Colorado’s amendment—and a similar initiative being considered for the ballot in Georgia—goes to the heart of a rift between absolutists and incrementalists in the anti-abortion movement. From the Washington Times:
"National Right to Life thinks this will do more harm than good," [Brian Rooney of the Thomas More Law Center, which backs the amendments] said. "They argue that the makeup of the court isn't right for a decision. We argue that this is the best opportunity we're likely to have in the next decade. If we don't confront Roe now, the way the politics of the presidential election are going, we could be waiting for years."
Indeed, National Right to Life ended up divorcing its Colorado affiliate last year after a spat over incrementalism. (The head of Colorado Right to Life accused NRLC of selling out to the Republican Party.)
Posted by Ezra at 6:52 PM | Permalink
August 27, 2007
MO Gov. Retains ADF To Protect State Abortion Law
The Alliance Defense Fund reports that "Missouri Governor Matt Blunt’s administration has retained attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund for legal representation after Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit against a new state law" and that ADF considers "it a privilege to legally represent Governor Blunt’s administration in this matter free of charge.”
Posted by Kyle at 1:52 PM | Permalink
July 25, 2007
Right Works to Undermine Missouri Stem-Cell Amendment
Last November, Missourians voted to amend their state constitution to put a halt to attempts by their own state legislators to ban embryonic stem-cell research. Proponents of the amendment overcame a protracted – and sometimes vicious – right-wing campaign, and the Religious Right was dismayed by the results: “[W]e stand on the precipice of grave judgment if America does not repent,” said Rick Scarborough, who held several rallies throughout the state. “[G]overnment should never be able to veto the inviolable dignity of human life,” wrote David Prentice of the Family Research Council, warning that “democracy devolves into tyranny.” Opponents of stem-cell research vowed to continue the fight.
In a way, they are succeeding. The Stowers Institute for Medical Research is scrapping plans to expand its Kansas City facility, citing the hostile political environment, including a number of actions in the state legislature:
Sen. Matt Bartle’s unsuccessful filibuster of the nomination of Warren Erdman to the UM system Board of Curators because of his support for embryonic stem cell research.
The failed launch of a ballot item meant to overturn voter-approved Amendment 2. The ballot item would have banned somatic cell nuclear transfer, a process deemed critical to harness embryonic stem cells for research.
The withdrawal of life science-related projects from a $350 million plan to use sold loans from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority for capital improvement projects at public colleges.
Gov. Matt Blunt’s appointment of Rep. Bob Onder, R-Lake Saint Louis, an opponent of embryonic stem cell research, to the Life Sciences Research Board.
As one scientist explained:
Scientist Kevin Eggan had once considered packing up his lab at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and moving to Missouri. Now he's reluctant.
"I couldn't possibly come to a place where I thought the potentially lifesaving research I want to do could become illegal," said Eggan, who works on degenerative nerve disorders like Lou Gehrig's disease.
Posted by Ezra at 11:04 AM | Permalink
July 12, 2007
Abortion = Illegal Immigration
So says Rep. Todd Akin: "If you think about it we’ve aborted however many – 40 million – Americans through abortion. If those Americans had not been aborted, we might have more laborers here. Consequently, America is not reproducing itself in terms of our own internal repopulation of having a bunch of kids."
Posted by Kyle at 1:15 PM | Permalink
June 15, 2007
President, Hopefuls Join Anti-Abortion Confab, as Movement Spat Takes Back Seat
The National Right to Life Committee is holding its annual convention in Kansas City this weekend, and it’s drawn some prominent Republicans: President Bush saluted the gathered activists, saying in a taped message, “You have been a fearless shepherd of the innocent and unborn. … Together we've compiled an unprecedented record in the defense of the unborn and our work continues.”
Several GOP presidential candidates made the journey to greet the activists in person. Mitt Romney told conference-goers that their activism made him an anti-abortion “convert”; while he received a standing ovation, a video recently released by the McCain campaign shows him reiterating his pro-choice position as governor in 2005, emphasizing that he still has a long way to go to convince activists such as these of his sincerity. Sam Brownback was “cheered wildly,” according to Reuters, as he told the crowd, “We are winning the fight for life. We are going to win the fight for life.” Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul also spoke at the conference.
Fred Thompson, still yet to officially declare his candidacy for president, submitted a video message, featuring pictures of his wife and children. An archive video of Thompson as a candidate has also recently surfaced, showing him apparently supporting abortion rights. But unlike Romney, Thompson’s message today was not that of a convert:
In 1994, I made my first run for the U.S. Senate. I was proud to receive the National Right to Life endorsement. I’ve been with you ever since. You’ve been with me ever since. On abortion related votes I’ve been 100 percent.
These high-profile guests come at a crucial time for National Right to Life. The group has been at the center of an internecine conflict in the anti-abortion movement over long-term strategy. Its former Colorado state affiliate, Colorado Right to Life, joined a few other small groups to denounce religious-right heavyweight James Dobson, demanding that he “repent” for supporting the “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban.” National Right to Life defended Dobson, and Colorado Right to Life President Brian Rohrbough fired back, accusing its parent group of becoming “a wing of the Republican Party.” Since the ban only prevents one procedure, abortions will continue, according to the dissidents:
"The broader movement is claiming that we're saving lives, and we're not," said Brian Rohrbough, one of the dissident activists. "It can't get any worse than that." …
"We've been promised for almost 40 years that the strategy of electing Republicans would get us a Republican Supreme Court that would end abortion, and that has not happened," Rohrbough said. "If we raise money to do the same thing over and over again we will never, ever establish personhood for all [unborn] children."
The partial-birth ruling "gives us the most powerful example we've ever had of how morally bankrupt this strategy is," added the Rev. Bob Enyart, pastor of Denver Bible Church.
Meanwhile, incrementalists – including Dobson and most other national groups – see the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the ban as a major victory, and they plan to continue chipping away at Roe v. Wade by pushing more and more restrictions. Activist Jill Stanek accused her erstwhile “purist” allies of “fanatical thinking.” Meanwhile, Colorado Right to Life and the others took out another ad, this time in Human Events, again calling the ruling “More Wicked than Roe.”
So it wasn’t surprising that the day before National Right to Life’s big convention, it cut its state affiliate loose, naming “Colorado Citizens for Life/Protecting Life Now” in its stead.
Posted by Ezra at 6:02 PM | Permalink
May 3, 2007
Fidelis Applauds St. Louis Archbishop's Political Stunts
Classy Raymond Burke sacrificed charity to spite Sheryl Crow and dissed Sen. McCaskill at daughter’s graduation. More here.
Posted by Ezra at 11:59 PM | Permalink
May 2, 2007
Democratic Senator Uninvited from Daughter's Graduation
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) was scheduled to speak at her daughter’s graduation ceremony at a Catholic high school – but the invitation was rescinded over the senator’s positions on abortion and embryonic stem cell research, a major issue in her defeat of Sen. Jim Talent (R) last November. According to McCaskill’s office, the school told her the decision to uninvited her came from Raymond Burke, the archbishop of St. Louis.
Burke gained notoriety for his high profile denunciation of 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry, a Catholic, whom he warned to stay away from mass while campaigning in St. Louis – the archbishop threatened that he would withhold communion. More recently, Burke resigned as chairman of a children’s medical charity after its board of governors refused to cancel a fundraising concert by Sheryl Crow, whom he called “a high profile proponent of the destruction of innocent lives.” Burke’s political activism has made him a hero on the far Right.
Posted by Ezra at 5:50 PM | Permalink
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