God said it, I believe it, that settles it. – Popular bumper sticker<\/p>\n
Faith: not wanting to know what is true. – Friedrich Nietzsche<\/p>\n
My Twitter feed seethed all weekend with links to two closely-related stories. The first concerned Mike Huckabee’s resignation from the Country Music Association Foundation (CMAF), and the second concerned Scott Pruitt’s faith-based rejection of well-established science.<\/p>\n
The nexus is that both men exhibit the same character failure: Willful, resolute, ignorance.<\/p>\n
When CMAF appointed Mike Huckabee to its Board, his dismissive attitude toward LGBT rights triggered an immediate outcry; it was so intense that, less than 24-hours later, he resigned. This, in turn, triggered a lot of huff-and-puff about Christian persecution. There are two distinct threads here that need to be separated. Yes, it is true that Huckabee’s hostility toward homosexuals is grounded in his Christian beliefs. But it is also true that his Christian beliefs are wrong; the evidence is dispositive that being gay is not a wicked lifestyle choice, but a fact of biology.<\/p>\n
Huckabee exhibits, further, indifference to America’s secularism, its Constitutional rejection of religious teachings as a basis for making public policy.<\/p>\n
We are not talking here, then, about differences of opinion, but willful ignorance, a refusal to face facts that is grounded in deference to the meditations of some Bronze Age anonymity; that has adverse consequences for others, and is a character failure.<\/p>\n
Similarly, a recently-discovered radio interview reveals that Scott Pruitt does not believe in evolution and favors a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage (among other things). So: The head of the EPA, a science agency, rejects the foundation of all modern biology, and wishes to enshrine the Old Testament in the Constitution. Again, then, resolute ignorance of science, and a rejection of our secular Constitutional heritage — the same character failure, with adverse consequences for others.<\/p>\n
“Facts,” John Adams once said, “are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” Evolution is a fact. Sexual orientation is fixed before birth, and that is a fact. Our Constitutional design is secular, and that is a fact, too. These are well-known facts, facts whose proof is available to any interested person with just a few minutes of searching in any good public library or on the Internet; they are simply not susceptible of any educated, serious-minded dispute.<\/p>\n
The Inerrant Bible is … wrong<\/u><\/i>, case closed — and the refusal to face that, however painful, is about character. Huckabee’s and Pruitt’s characters come up wildly short, and neither man has any rightful place in public life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
God said it, I believe it, that settles it. – Popular bumper sticker Faith: not wanting to know what is true. – Friedrich Nietzsche My Twitter feed seethed all weekend with links to two closely-related stories. The first concerned Mike … Continue reading