Bias, skepticism, and nonsense

[elfs]

Okay, I owe you an apology. Two weeks ago I posted an article about in which I compared UK schools' refusal to teach the Holocaust for fear of upsetting Muslims to US schools' refusal to teach evolution for fear of upsetting Christians. As it now turns out, concern about the former may have been completely overblown. It is not a national crisis of teaching in the UK; it seems to have been a few anecdotes, not a reliable survey of course teachings.

Concern about the latter, however, is not. Half of all public schools in this country elide evolutionary biology in their biology courses for the simple reason that the teachers don't want to have to talk to angry parents.

I mention this because today I read from Americans United for Church and State that The Pentagon has agreed to allow fallen Wiccan soldiershave the pentacle on their gravestones. Barry Lynn is sometimes given to hyperbole so his statement that opposition to the recognition of the Wiccan symbol came from Bush personally makes my newly sensitized skepticism meter twitch just a little bit. My suspicion is raised because there are no links off the page to support Lynn's contention.

Comments

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

Apparently Lynn isn't actually contending that the opposition came from Bush personally--he's saying that the VA took Bush's publicly-voiced bias/opinion into account when they were making their decision, which is rather different.

[srmalloy.livejournal.com]

In at least the case of Sgt. Patrick Stewart, it wasn't the VA that made the decision. From an article about Sgt. Stewart getting his pentacle:

VA officials have reportedly said they were in the process of soliciting input for approving the symbol when Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington-based watchdog group, sued the VA in October to force approval of the symbol's use. But Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn (R) short-circuited the controversy, getting the state veterans' affairs department to issue Stewart's gravestone with the pentacle. The state agency asserted jurisdiction in the dispute because it, and not the federal agency, maintains the cemetery.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

That's correct ... but it was because the federal government was dragging its heels so much, and refusing Sgt. Stewart the same respect they automatically granted to a fallen soldier of any other faith.

According to this article, the length of time it took them to approve it--some 10 years, I believe--was highly unusual.

A Wiccan group first petitioned the VA for approval of the pentacle years ago. Officials at the agency dragged their feet on the request but in the interim approved the symbols of six other religions and belief systems. Among them was a Sikh emblem, which the VA approved in just a few weeks.

BTW, the full official list of approved symbols is here, if you're interested.

[lovingboth]

Coo, nothing for the faith that gave the world the idea of one god, the day of judgement, etc etc.

Or is it just that no Zoroastrians join the US military?