Bravo to the Man from Jupiter

April 29th, 2008 EmmaPeel Posted in News |

The Florida House of Representatives voted yesterday to protect the right of high school teachers to teach their students Discovery Institute’s talking points, er, I mean “the growing scientific controversy over evolution”. It was almost a straight party line vote, with the Republicans voting 71-2 in favor of gibberish.

Two Republicans voted in favor of sanity & reason. And one of these, former majority whip Carl Domino, (R)-Jupiter, wasn’t afraid to speak up against the science-deniers…

Noting that some people believe the Holocaust never happened or 9/11 was an Israel-hatched plot, Domino said he doesn’t want fringe theories introduced in public schools.

“There are a lot of strange things out there that I don’t want teachers teaching,” said Domino, who joined the Democrats in voting against the bill.

He said it would be difficult or impossible to challenge evolution from a scientific viewpoint since there’s near unanimity on evolution in the scientific community.

By the way, more than one article is reinforcing the speculation that’s been going around - that the two houses of the Florida legislature, by passing different versions of the bill which would now have to be reconciled and voted on again before reaching the governor’s desk, are really only throwing their less educated constituents a bone while simultaneously saving the state from becoming the latest laughingstock due to creationism-friendly policies. Another article quotes the bill’s senate sponsor, the intellectual powerhouse Rhonda Storms, as saying it would take a “miracle” to reconcile the two versions before the legislative session ends on Friday.

However, if that’s the case then the prudent thing to do for a politician like Reps. Domino and Homan would be to just dummy up and go along with the scam. They protect their socon flank even as they secretly do what’s right for the state. Are there two Republicans in the Florida house who simply can’t abide such a mendacious tactic? And maybe Rep. Domino’s seniority, at least, frees him to publicly speak up for rationality.

We’ll have to leave it up to you Floridians to let us know if this is a good or bad sign. In the meanwhile, bravo, Carl Domino!