I hope you're right, but you may be optimistic. Since serious
arguments
have been advanced by a significant number of leftists for compromises
on
the issues of women's rights in reproductive politics, death penalty,
etc.
in the interest of the allegedly larger good, why should they not also
argue for compromises on the science vs. creationism issue? They may
very
well argue, using the same logic, that there are lots of potentially
"economically progressive" people who are creationists. And, as a
matter
of fact, compromises on this issue would create far less hardships for
the
working class than the ones periodically suggested on left e-lists.
Yoshie
>>>>>>>>>>>>
The point of compromise is to get something meaningful in return, which in my classification does not include Prince Albert. A more interesting case might have been the abortive candidacy of the ex-gov of Pennsylvania, Casey (forgot his first name), who had a beguiling mix of strong social spending and pro-life sentiment.
Otherwise you are quite right. A concession on this issue could be amply rewarded by something much more important in return. After all, what's in question is not a national mandate to teach creationism, but merely a ratification of what has always been the case, more-or-less -- public education is locally controlled. In this issue, it comes down to how much trust one puts in popular democracy. Follow-up news reports have indicated that Kansas teachers are going to go right on doing whatever they were doing prior to this flap.
The exclusion of religion from public education, by which I do NOT mean from science courses, has gone way overboard, leading to profound ignorance of it. I don't think this is a good thing. It certainly does not seemed to have restrained the popularity of religion in the nation, which is one of the most religious in the world, if my memory of statistics is correct. Only a week or two ago, somebody posted statistics to indicate that the percentage of non-believers in the U.S. was between 10 and 20%, with 5 or 10 in the "don't know" category. The rest believed that god created the universe -- either with a bang or over a zillion-year period.
mbs