Connecticut Parents Elect Creationist to School Board

Parents in a well-to-do Hartford suburb have elected an avowed Creationist to their school board. He means to change the way science is taught. Others would like to do the same in Oregon, and have even tried.

Once famed for housing the Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Reactor, Haddam, Connecticut is located about 27 miles outside Hartford. The town’s demographics paint a picture of exclusivity and affluence, with income and property values above state averages, substantially lower unemployment, and significantly lower minority populations than the state averages. A religious town, 71% of Haddam’s residents identify as Roman Catholic.

Chester Harris was recently elected to the Region 17 school board, which serves the towns of Haddam and Killingworth, Connecticut. Harris, a school van driver, holds a degree in theology from Toccoa Falls College, a private Christian school in Georgia. He’s a conservative Republican. He’s also a Creationist, and cites his faith and his “concerns” about the teaching of evolution as his reason for running for the school board:

I sort of got stuck on one thing with them, which was basically the teaching of evolution in the schools and how it tends to ride roughshod over the fact that various religions — Christian, Hebrew, Muslim — hold a theistic world view. Evolution is basically an assumption that there is no God.

As might be expected, Harris parrots Creationist party lines. Who could forget this old chestnut?

[Believing that life evolved takes] a whole lot more faith than believing there was a creator who set all these things in motion and allows us to operate under free will.

And how about this space-saving conglomeration of “stop bashing my defenseless almighty god with your ‘facts’” and “it’s just a theory”?

It’s all still theory and faith. If that’s what they want to hold to, fine, but don’t denigrate me because I believe the other way. We’re both operating on faith. I just have faith in someone and they have faith in something.

Harris didn’t forget that time-tested favorite, “my beliefs deserve equal consideration in a science class even though they’re not based on — and even ignore — scientific evidence”:

It’s time for balance. … And I just want to be there so there’s a voice that says there’s room for all of us.

So, Harris has made it clear what his agenda is. He wants to introduce pseudoscience to the science classroom.

A Creationist on a school board isn’t a new thing . . . but it is for Connecticut:

An official with the state Department of Education said he cannot recall an instance of a school in the state witnessing the type of epic battle over evolution that has riven communities throughout the nation. Nor can he recall a creationist serving on a local school board.

If it can happen in Connecticut, long known as a “blue state”, where else can it happen?

Not in Oregon, at least not yet:

Schools may teach about explanations of life on earth, including religious ones (such as “creationism”), in comparative religion or social studies classes. In science class, however, they may present only genuinely scientific critiques of, or evidence for, any explanation of life on earth, but not religious critiques (beliefs unverifiable by scientific methodology). Schools may not refuse to teach evolutionary theory in order to avoid giving offense to religion nor may they circumvent these rules by labeling as science an article of religious faith. Public schools must not teach as scientific fact or theory any religious doctrine, including “creationism,” although any genuinely scientific evidence for or against any explanation of life may be taught. Just as they may neither advance nor inhibit any religious doctrine, teachers should not ridicule, for example, a student’s religious explanation for life on earth.

While it is not permitted to teach “intelligent design” or creationism, note that Oregon’s teachers are forbidden from “ridiculing” a student’s religious explanations for life on Earth. Open to interpretation, no?

The Northwest Creation Network is working outside the schools (at present) to fill young minds with images of humans and dinosaurs coexisting. They combine pseudoscience with scare tactics, explaining in detail how the scientific theory of evolution leads to atheism:

Interestingly, the biologists in the National Academy of Science possess the lowest rate of belief of all the science disciplines, with only 5.5% believing in God. This decline in belief in biologists strongly indicates the nature of the cause, and the ability of the teaching of evolutionary biology to turn people away from a belief in God.

So far, the Creationists have been held at bay, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t tried. In 2007, Kris Helphinstine accepted a position teaching Evolutionary Biology for the Sisters School District. Instead, he handed out a young-earth creationist tract from Answers in Genesis, a radical Christian organization that links belief in evolution to Nazism. He was fired after eight days on the job.

How long will the Northwest Creation Network stay away from Oregon’s schools?

Related articles:

1. Conn. school board revotes on church graduation
2. Another creationist Free School proposed for 2013
3. Proposed creationist Free School gets through to interview stage
4. Triumph in Texas: State school board approves sound-science materials
5. Conn. school board revotes on church graduation

Mike Daniels is co-editor of Secular News Daily.

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