Florida lawmakers debate offering a Christian license plate

From The Associated Press:

MIAMI (AP) -- Florida drivers can order more than 100 specialty license plates celebrating everything from manatees to the Miami Heat, but one now under consideration would be the first in the nation to explicitly promote a specific religion.

The Florida Legislature is considering a specialty plate with a design that includes a Christian cross, a stained-glass window and the words "I Believe."

Rep. Edward Bullard, the plate's sponsor, said people who "believe in their college or university" or "believe in their football team" already have license plates they can buy. The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with "something they believe in," he said.

If the plate is approved, Florida would become the first state to have a license plate featuring a religious symbol that's not part of a college logo. Approval would almost certainly face a court challenge.

(read full article)

This clearly violates the separation of church and state. If drivers want to advertise to the world that they're brainwashed, they already have the freedom to place stickers and other emblems on their vehicles. There is nothing for lawmakers to debate. The state government has no role in the support and promotion of any religion for any reason. Period.

More Ignorance in Florida

From St. Petersburg Times:

Darwin's theory of evolution helped fuel the rise of Hitler and contributed to the school-shooting massacre at Columbine, a former St. Petersburg City Council member wrote in a letter urging the Pinellas County School Board to expose students to alternative theories.

"Evolution gives our kids an excuse to believe in natural selection and survival of the fittest, which leads to a belief that they are superior over the weak," Bill Foster wrote board members in a letter received this week. "This is a slippery slope."

He continued: "One of the Columbine shooters wrote on his Web site, 'You know what I love? Natural selection! It's the best thing that ever happened to the Earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak organisms.'"

Foster's letter comes in the midst of an increasingly emotional tug-of-war over the state's proposed new science standards, which embrace Charles Darwin's theory as the fundamental pillar of modern biology. The current standards, written in 1996, do not mention the word "evolution."

(full article)

Kids paying for holy war over evolution

From an Op-Ed piece on MiamiHerald.com, a few choice excerpts:

"We're opposed to teaching evolution as a fact", said Oscar Howard Jr., superintendent of the Taylor County, Florida School District.

According to Danny Lundy, vice chairman of the School Board, "'The 'good people' back home" would have "no choice" but to pull their kids out of school.

(full article)

Impositions on understanding the whole process, imposed by those not understanding the whole process.

It is shameful that this ignorant attitude still prevails in many parts of the same country I call home. It's long past time for the rest of our population to wake up, grow up, and give up their childish mythologies; yet exactly the opposite seems to be happening in these areas. These are decent, caring people, so misguided by religious ignorance as to "protect" their children from the very things that could finally wrest them from their abject ignorance and in many cases poverty. And they vote.