Thank God Jack Kemp Was Never Elected President

This depiction of progressive evolution does not include the ancestors of Jack Kemp

Have you ever wondered what happens to one of the many people who run in their party's Presidential Primaries and then lose miserably? Some fade into obscurity, some become political pundits like Jack Kemp. After reading his most recent commentary, I wish he would have chosen to fade into obscurity.

Jack Kemp wants to reassure conservatives that despite recent victories for those of us who want science to be taught in science classes in public schools, that the anti-evolution movement is far from defeated. Kemp provides the following examples to support his case (if you think I'm kidding, please see his original post):

• Voter turnout in the Kansas election where Pro-intelligent design board members were ousted from their posts was only 18 percent.
• Ann Coulter's most recent attempt to write in complete sentences "Godless: The Church of Liberalism" is selling like hotcakes. And as Kemp points out, she spends a good part of the book explaining how evolution is directly at odds with religion.
• Only 10 percent of the general public, as cited in an anonymous Gallup Poll, believe in evolution as currently taught in public schools.

Boy, Jack Kemp has some great points there. Let me take them on one at a time:

• Unfortunately for Kemp, a lack of voter turnout does not invalidate election results. The fact that not a single member of the Kansas State School Board that voted to restrict the teaching of evolution in schools held their seat lets you know how the people who matter (those who chose to vote) feel about conservatives trying to insert pseudoscience into their science curriculum.
• Ann Coulter is nothing more than a bitch, trying to get a rise out of people. She has no credibility, and everything she says should be carefully fact-checked, since she obviously chooses not to fact-check a single thing she says. Want examples ? Just because a book sells a lot of copies does not make anything within it true. Example? Any of the Harry Potter books.
• Finally, this anonymous Gallup Poll on what people believe as far as evolution is concerned. This is a Jack Kemp fact flea flicker (he used to play football). If you look at a variety of polls completely recently on the topic of evolution and what people believe, nearly half of people believe in evolution. Where Kemp hides the ball on this one is that because schools have to follow that whole, annoying "seperation of church and state" thing, schools don't teach that God had any part in evolution, since whether he did or not is a theological question and not a scientific one. So, because a good number of people who believe in evolution believe that God had some part in it, Kemp is able to say that a very small percentage of people actually believe it as it is taught in schools. Nice sleight of hand eh? Oh, and even if you take those people who believe in evolution without God being part of it, it's still about twice as many (20%) as Kemp cites in his article in any poll in the past 2 years.

The main point is that whatever you believe about how the universe was created, anything having to do with God is not science, and therefore, should not be taught in science class. Intelligent people who have studied evolution will tell you that there is absolutely nothing about evolution that contradicts a healthy belief in God. If you're one of those literal interpreters of the Bible, you've got bigger and more fundamental problems than evolution, such as how to rectify the obvious contradiction between Thou Shalt Not Kill and most of the Old Testament.

Conservatives don't want to be painted as "dumb, rural fundamentalists" to quote Kemp's column. If you don't want to be portrayed that way, then pick up a science book and learn the difference between theology and biology. Kemp was almost your candidate for President in 1988, is this who you want to be your spokesperson on educational curriculum?