Will Mike Huckabee be the First President to Visit the Creationism Museum?

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

Mark Karlin, Editor and Publisher, BuzzFlash.com

December 5, 2007

By now, almost all BuzzFlash readers know that Mike Huckabee was one of three GOP candidates to hold up his hand when asked who disbelieved the theory of evolution at an early debate. (The other two were Tancredo and Brownback.)

Huckabee, a Baptist minister, has made no bones about how he believes in Creationism. When pressed on whether or not as president he would support the teaching of Creationism in schools, he bobs and weaves by saying that it is a state’s rights issue.

So, we suppose that Huckabee would have no problem at all with the agency that essentially functions as the Texas State Board of Education firing its director of science education. What was her offense? She merely had forwarded an e-mail about a lecture given by a professor who states the case that evolution is based in science. That’s right, the people responsible for oversight of public education in Texas terminated the employment of a professional teacher who had served "27 years as a science teacher and 9 years as the agency’s director of science" because she sent an e-mail about a talk on evolution!

Huckabee then will, if he becomes the Republican nominee – and God forbid, president – likely somewhere along the way visit the Creation Museum, which is going gangbusters in Petersburg, Kentucky.

According to a recent article:

1,500 to 4,000 visitors, including busloads from Christian schools and churches, stand in line for as long as an hour to wander 60,000 square feet of animatronic exhibits presenting the Bible's creation story as fact.

It's been six months since the Creation Museum opened to crowds and protests, and the controversial attraction has proven more popular than even organizers had predicted.

Halfway into its first year, it is on the verge of surpassing its projected yearlong attendance goal of 250,000. Officials now expect nearly 400,000 people to pass through the doors by year's end.

"It's been a surprise," said spokeswoman Melany Ethridge, who attributed it to the dramatic exhibits and ongoing media interest from Europe and elsewhere.

At least 10,000 people have paid for year-round access. …

The $27-million facility drew worldwide attention for its claims that the Earth is 6,000 years old, not billions; that dinosaurs and man coexisted; and that geologic features such as the Grand Canyon and fossils were created in a global flood provoked by Adam's and Eve's original sin.

Just imagine what a visit by President Huckabee would do for attendance!

Just yesterday, the Christian Science Monitor reported that America’s teens rank 29th in science worldwide. Bush has helped us start our travel backwards into the dark ages; just think what a giant prehistoric step a President Huckabee would make in moving us back to the pre-enlightenment days of yore.

As a former Kentucky science teacher noted in a learned and compelling December 2nd op-ed in the Louisville Courier-Journal: "We do not need citizens who are closed-minded, anti-knowledge fundamentalists who want to see the world move closer to the Biblical prophecies of an Armageddon. (AIG [the museum’s creators] also believes in a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation.) Unfortunately, the creation museum in Northern Kentucky has been very successful at encouraging their non-thinking, anti-reasoning philosophy, especially among young, dinosaur-loving children. Inaction in this matter may come back to haunt us in the future."

The science teacher laments, "The tax-exempt ministry, Answers in Genesis, and its new $28 million creation museum in Boone County has become the de facto source of science information to thousands of Christians who are throwing away reason and 500 years of scientific inquiry and replacing it with ignorant dogma."

A Huckabee presidency would mean that nation that came of age in the world because of its innovations in technology and science will recede into the backwaters of Bible thumping, as science is further eroded in the name of "Holy Scripture."

But Huckabee wants to allay our concerns.

We hear that he was disapproving of the way that George W. Bush mishandled the Hurricane Katrina recovery. Apparently, Huckabee would have saved everyone by floating Noah’s Ark down the Mississippi and letting the residents of New Orleans board two-by-two.

Now that’s a creative Creationist!

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