The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 27, 2001, Tuesday Pg. B4

HEADLINE: The ayatollahs strike again

BYLINE: George Arnold, @Private:, @Caption:, @Correction:

This legislative session has been as discouraging as the daily reports
from Wall Street or the monthly bills from the gas company. There's not enough
money to plug all the holes. Not that there ever is, but this time the
situation is more critical than usual.
Arkansas can't find the money to give its public school teachers the
raises they've been promised. The scholarship program to keep our brightest
students in Arkansas is bankrupt. The state police have had to choose
between their health insurance program and pay raises. Colleges can't get
the money they need to do their jobs.
So what was the big debate in the Ledge about last week? None of the
above. Instead, our legislators spent their time and energy on evolution. Again.
Maybe the backers of the bill to force our schools to refer to evolution
as an unproven theory saw a chance to so something--anything--instead of
dealing with money problems they don't seem able to solve.
In the end, Arkansas was spared the notoriety of passing another
laughingstock of an anti-evolution law. But it was a close call. More
legislators voted for the bill in the House of Representatives than voted
against it. But enough others ducked the issue by voting present, or by
not voting at all, to deny the bill the 51 votes it needed to pass. Its
backers got only 45. Still, it's sad to learn that nearly half our representatives
confuse embarrassment to the state with public service.
The bill was the brainchild of one of our own, Jim Holt, the state
representative from Springdale. If the Republicans of Northwest Arkansas
are the Shiites of the party, as the governor has colorfully labeled them,
Jim Holt is one of their ayatollahs. If his name is unfamiliar, that's no
surprise. He's a freshman legislator and his record in the current session
has been undistinguished. It still is, despite his bill to discredit
evolution, but now he's called attention to himself. He should have
stopped while he was ahead.
Representative Holt was unhappy with the opposition to his bill. He didn't
like it that his job as a chaplain at a youth treatment center was brought
into the discussion. And he didn't like it that his belief in creationism
was, either. His personal religious beliefs had nothing to do with the
bill, he said.
Such protests were the most disturbing part of his defense. Because
they're so obviously specious. The most generous interpretation of such a
statement is that he's fooling himself. Less generous is the suspicion that he's
intentionally misleading. Laws that restrict the teaching of evolution
have been routinely tossed out by the courts over the many years that such laws
have been subjected to legal analysis. Supporters of the laws now tend to
be less than honest about their motivations, believing that such flim-flam
will allow them to sneak the laws onto the books anyway.
As a chaplain (and counselor) at a youth treatment center, Representative
Holt should be candid about his motives. As an example for youth, he
should be honest--even if that undermines his desire to translate his personal
religious beliefs into state law. The fix in which he found himself last
week should at least tell him something about the shallowness of his own
thinking on this subject.
Arkansas should stay out of the personal religion business. Instead, the
state has these periodic intrusions by those who consider that their
literal interpretation of the Bible somehow must be force-fed to everybody
else. Such proselytizing should be against the law.
Come to think of it, it is. The courts have already said so.
Jim Holt says his broader mission is to clear up the errors that appear in
the textbooks of our schools. But his bill focused on evolution, and would
have prohibited public schools from buying or distributing material
"that they know or should have known contains, or presents as
factual, information which has been proven false or fraudulent." That clause
covers a lot of ground, truth being a difficult thing to pin down and
something that can seem to change over time, as perspectives shift or more
information comes to light.
The notion that we establish a checklist for the Truth as Jim Holt Knows
It, and make everybody else bow to the list is absurd. But it's the
ultimate result of the belief that some of us possess the truth and others
don't. That kind of thinking leads true believers to suppose that they can
impose their views on everybody else. If you resist, they twist the
argument to accuse you of forcing your beliefs on them.
Fat chance. These homegrown ayatollahs are too benighted to consider a
different point of view. All everybody else can do is try to keep them
from  imposing theirs on the rest of us.

George Arnold is opinion editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's
northwest edition.