Late in August, I was watching a movie alone in my room when the on-screen action got a little sexy. I admit that I was aroused. So I was watching, quite aware of my arousal, when my mother, holding a pile of laundry, suddenly walked in without knocking and said, “how many damn times are you going to watch that ‘March of the Penguins’ movie?”
That incident, though, is not what ruined the movie for me. The cultural conservatives and the religious right are responsible for that. The New York Times refers to the pro-life, anti-gay marriage, traditional values set that have used the movie as propaganda for their cause. Worst of all, perhaps, are those who claim that the film “makes a strong case for Intelligent Design.” Even the penguins at this point look at these Creationists and think, “what are you, nuts?”
I loved penguins even before the movie. I have a life-sized laminated Adeli penguin with “Go Jets!” scrawled across his chest that I made in 3rd grade. But penguins, even with Morgan Freeman narrating their actions, still come in second to pandas. Evidence of this love can be been in a 1990 painting of a delightful panda named Scruffy who has “Hapy Mothers Dey!” written on his belly. My disillusionment over the penguins became an existential crisis when I saw Of Pandas and People, an “educational” book that “gives evidence for intelligent design from origin-of-life studies.” It felt like a sudden and terrifying stab in the back by these pandas. Bam! Boo! Betrayal.
Soon, though, all of my favorite animals – from the titmouse to the blue-footed booby – will be co-opted by the fundamentalists. And the man mispronouncing all of the animals’ names will be George W. Bush. Recently, Bush took a break from one of his many vacations to talk to reporters in Crawford, Texas, about how intelligent design should be taught in schools. The idea of some guy clearing away brush at his ranch in the backwoods of Texas and incoherently arguing that he didn’t “descend from no ape” is pretty funny. The fact that this guy happens to be the President is not. Now, to be fair, I’ve been to that part of Texas and, I have to admit – not a whole lot of evolution has taken place over there. Being around Crawford was like being in the opening scene of Kubrick’s 2001, except, instead of throwing a bone into the air, they slapped American flags on their trucks.
All politicians are skilled in manipulating the truth, but George Bush, with his anti-fact philosophy, has set the bar. In addition to lying about weapons of mass destruction and an Iraq – 9/11 link that cost the lives of tens of thousands of people, George Bush is able to look at scientific fact, say “nah,” and just make stuff up. Bush and his fundamentalist cronies think that some things are too complex and cannot be answered by science. I tend to agree with this. Find me a scientist who can answer the question, “how can balls this big fit on one man’s body?” Global warming? Stem cell research? Evolution? Not in Bushland. So what if the vast majority of the science community is in agreement? Bush has his own scientists who conduct precise, empirical experiments on the effects of “truth” on his evangelical base. The results determine the policy. The term “double blind” is not a reference to the experiments.
This manipulation of science to fit the ideology is profoundly dangerous and has created widespread misinformation. For instance, many Christian right groups assert that having an abortion drastically increases a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. While this is flatly denied by the National Institute of Health (NIH), the idea has been proliferated and there is even a Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer that claims that the NIH is part of the “cover-up.”
There is also Bush’s alignment with “Focus on the Family” in advocating condom warnings that say that condoms won’t prevent HPV2. He is working with the Director of the Abstinence Policy Department on this. This person’s job is to stop people from having sex. It says something about your position in life when a “Babylon 5” T-Shirt can do your job just as well as you can. Maybe undermining safe-sex so Bush can push his puritan social agenda isn’t the best health policy.
Religious, unconstitutional teachings of creationism are being imposed on students in public schools in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas, and elsewhere. According to the Huffington Post’s Sam Harris, 28 percent of Americans say they believe in evolution, while 68 percent say they believe in Satan. Education and truth are increasingly falling victim to political manipulation and religious pandering. Maybe the pandas and penguins are making their own books and movies using us as proof that there is no evolution.
1 The penguins do, in fact, reflect the values of such evangelicals as Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker, as every season they find a new mate.
2 Hey, George – when it comes to not having sex, I don’t need your help.
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