Who would Jesus elect?
Sandbox politics in Sacramento
The Sacramento Bee reports that student body elections are being held this week at American River College, the biggest community college in northern California. During the past year, ARC's student government has been notorious for endorsing the anti-gay Proposition 8 and opposing the national Day of Silence. That's what happens when student apathy allows a small but vigorous group of anti-gay bigots and religious extremists to take over the student association.
It's easy to characterize the ARC student politicians as comical—especially when a member of their coalition takes the trouble to write his college newspaper to denounce nudity in art as pornographic—but the unfortunate truth is that they're dead serious. And one of their targets is science. They really hate it. Their leader, Yuriy Popko, who is the Christian cabal's candidate for student body president, told the Bee that he opposes “any kind of political, religious or anti-religious indoctrination in the classroom.” That's the way Popko spins it. One of his running mates provides more specifics:
No, Viktor, the age of the earth does not depend on your religion, although your religion may prevent you from accepting any evidence more current than Archbishop Ussher's extremely literal arithmetic exercise on the Bible.Christian students feel like they can't speak their mind in class, said Viktor Choban, a student council member who is running for re-election as part of Popko's slate. He said he is tired of professors' support for feminism and science teachers whose tests ask how old the Earth is.
“It depends on your religion,” said Choban, 25. “I would say 6,000 years based on my religion. The evolutionists would say 2 million years.”
But perhaps it doesn't matter. Viktor gets to flunk no matter what he says. He won't get any more credit for an answer of 2 million years than he would for 6000. Viktor's paid so little attention in his science classes that he doesn't know the actual answer is 4.5 billion years. Way to close your mind!
The election results will be posted later this week. Shall we all pray that the religious extremists running the ARC student government suddenly find themselves with a lot more time to spend on their religious devotions?
