another setback for the homosexual agenda

[rone]

A federal judge on Thursday blocked a county school system from instituting a health curriculum that includes discussions of homosexuality.

U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams agreed with two groups that sued contending such discussions gave preference of religions that are tolerant of homosexuality over those that reject it.

Religions that are tolerant of homosexuality... like, what, Buddhism?  I love how fundamentalist Christian groups are using freedom of religion as a mallet in their fight against gays, as well as in their push to establish Creationism as a legitimate science.  "Your message of tolerance oppresses my religious right to hate fags and evolution!  Filthy hippays!"

In this case, Defendants [Montgomery Co. Schools] open up the classroom to the subject of homosexuality, and specifically, the moral rightness of the homosexual lifestyle. However, the Revised Curriculum presents only one view on the subject - that homosexuality is a natural and morally correct lifestyle - to the exclusion of other perspectives...
            - Judge Alexander Williams

This insane trend that you may teach something only if you also include any and all opposing viewpoints must be stamped out.  Seriously, what's the next step?  Teaching Alexander Abian's "Equivalence of Mass and Time" as part of any quantum mechanics class?

Comments

[palecur.livejournal.com]

Well, the thing with evolution is, the word 'theory' doesn't apply to evolution itself. Evolution is observed fact -- it happens. There's documentation of speciation on both micro time scales and macro time scales. The theory is about how the evolution happens, not about whether it happens.

Same thing with magnetism. Magnetism is an observed fact. We have a theory that accounts for the facts, but it's just the current best fit. It could be replaced with something better next week -- granted, after years of refinement, the burden of proof on the something better is immense, but it could happen.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

You scientists and your dogma! You can't prove that all the effects of magnetism aren't being simulated by invisible flying elves that push things around. Promoting the magnetism theory involves promoting a methodologically naturalistic anti-flying-elf metaphysics that implies bigoted intolerance toward Flying Magnetism Simulator Elf Belief.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

You can't prove that all the effects of magnetism aren't being simulated by invisible flying elves that push things around.

I AM THE SHOVER ELF.
I PUSH THINGS AROUND.
WE ARE HERE TO PROTECT YOU
WE ARE HERE TO PROTECT YOU
WE ARE HERE TO PROTECT YOU
FROM THE TERRIBLE SECRET OF SCIENCE.

[frosch.livejournal.com]

This thread would be funny if I had not recently had a lunchtime conversation with a 6'6" unix admin who insisted that the Big Bang theory was inconsistent with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

I feebly attempted to explain to him what the Second Law actually says, then STFU when I realized that one can never, ever, win an argument with root.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Just play him this sound clip (http://www.moviewavs.com/0056218974/MP3S/TV_Shows/Simpsons/laws.mp3) next time.

theory and fact

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

The pertinent question, though, is not whether evolution happens, but whether it happened to us. We have a bunch of observable facts in the fossil record and a theory that successfully explains them, and it's that theory that leads to the conclusion that we evolved from the primordial soup along with everything else.

The problem, of course, is not in labeling this theory a theory, but in the general public's misunderstanding of how the word "theory" is used in science. As long as people can continue to get away with saying "just a theory" about this or any other scientific theory, actual science will have to keep competing with folklore and superstition in public science education.