I Hate Science More Than You

In yet more proof that mixing religion and government is generally a bad idea, we now have a tussle in Alabama between a Republican candidate for governor and a group calling itself the True Republican PAC. The issue - and I'm not making this up - is which Republican is more Christian, more godly, and more anti-science.

Yes, it started when the PAC, apparently a front funded by the state teachers' union, ran an attack ad saying Bradley Byrne "supported the teaching of evolution, said evolution best explains the origin of life, even said the Bible is only partially true."

Good heavens, the man must be some sort of secret Jew, or Muslim, or even (gasp!) an atheist. Fortunately, Byrne has defended God, Jesus and Alabama by fighting back and proceeding to out-God his critics:

As a Christian and as a public servant, I have never wavered in my belief that this world and everything in it is a masterpiece created by the hands of God. As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school text books. Those who attack me have distorted, twisted and misrepresented my comments and are spewing utter lies to the people of this state.

Well, so there!

Byrne's closest opponent in the primary is Roy Moore, a former state supreme court judge who became a hero to the Christian right by installing a 2½-ton monument of the Ten Commandments at the courthouse in 2001. "Today a cry has gone out across our land for the acknowledgment of that God upon whom this nation and our laws were founded," he proclaimed at the official dedication. "May this day mark the restoration of the moral foundation of law to our people and the return to the knowledge of God in our land."

Others disagreed with his call for an explicitly religious judiciary and sued. After a two-year legal fight, federal judge Myron Thompson ordered him to remove the monument as an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state. Moore defied the order and was removed from the bench by his fellow Alabama State Supreme Court judges.

Moore is running on a program of "morality" and the "right to acknowledge God," complaining that "Judge Thompson's order was simply an unlawful order which contradicted not only the Constitution of the United States but every State Constitution to include that of Alabama which acknowledges the existence of God."

So we've got quite the God-off going on down in the heart of Dixie. With both main GOP candidates competing over who can make the best obeisance to the Almighty, it seems that the state's real problems - you know, jobs, health care and other boring secular stuff - will be ignored. Yes, people might be sick and out of work, but they can take comfort in the fact that the likely Republican nominee will be looking out for their immortal souls.