(In)Tolerance

The other day I had a very interesting discussion with a couple who were staunch Democrats and very adamant about the virtues of tolerance.

She was Catholic and he was Jewish, and their understanding of tolerance meant that although there were many important moral decisions of the day to be dealt with, they didn't think it was a basis upon which electoral decisions should be made.

This did not stop them from pushing their views, but their concept of tolerance meant one nation, many ideas.

In the discussion that followed however they pushed their concept of tolerance to include a desire to have creationism taught along side the "theory" of evolution in the public school system.

I was somewhat taken aback on this shift of the meaning of tolerance. Not if they believe in creationism or not-that is their prerogative. No, my concern was their desire to have it taught along with evolution in the school room, all in the interest of tolerance.

I must admit that in the first instance I had to overcome my usual surprise which admittedly borders on derision when confronted with creationism. The derision emanates from my inability to comprehend that anyone could really think that humans have only been on the earth some 5000 years.

But that was not their point so I had to start thinking just what it was that this couple was promoting. They were well educated, successful, worldly people, and yet here they were advocating creationism.

At the time I politely changed the subject but it bothered me and so over the next couple of days I reflected on it. I was annoyed that their sense of tolerance allowed for the inclusion of creationism in public education, and mine didn't. I was also bothered that their tolerance seemed to deny my opinion.

Suddenly it dawned on me that what they were trying to say was that their view of creationism was intelligent design, and that that view had as much merit as the "theory" of evolution. Their tolerance positioned them not so much as anti-evolution as such, just against the idea that it all happened haphazardly.

And I had taken their bait.

The discussion had moved from a discussion of science to one of faith. As a tenet of one's faith that there is a god and that this god is behind the creation of-well, everything-was not a discussion in which I intended to engage.

Faith is faith. Freedom of religion is one of the basic rights upon which the U.S. was formed. It is a wonderful right to have and I only wish it were granted worldwide.

But there is another basic understanding associated with the right to freedom of religion ingrained in the American Constitution. That is the separation of Church and State, for the benefit of both.

I believe this is one of the most important achievements of our founding fathers, right up there with the creation of an elected government.

There is room for basically every religion-as long as said religion doesn't contravene the American Constitution i.e. advocate overthrowing the government-and part of that Constitution is the separation of Church and State.

Public education is a reflection of that separation. The fact that faith schools exist parallel to the public schools is both confusing, and an affirmation of this separation.

The public education system sets the required curriculum for all schools. There does exist a difficult area which is how does one address religion in the public school curriculum? I would put it under ethics, perhaps history-not under religion.

I believe anyone wishing to have religious education in a specific religion should ideally go to that education outside public school buildings, and outside of public school hours, preferably in the "prayer house" of that religion.

Given the existence of "faith schools" that religious education can take place there-in addition to the state curriculum.

To argue that creationism should be taught in public schools under the guise of tolerance is clever, and insidious. It is also against the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the intention of which was to protect the secular, and the non-secular.