That a political leader would make these comments seem to be to be one heckuva good argument AGAINST the theory of intelligent design, because this is just crazy (h/t):
John Tory spent the morning promoting his $400 million election campaign promise to introduce public funding for faith-based schools and acknowledged that under the plan, schools would be allowed teach controversial subjects such a creationism.
“They teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum but they also could teach the facts to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs,” the Progressive Conservative Leader told reporters.
Taxpayer dollars to teach creationism alongside evolution in taxpayer-funded schools? And creationism, rather than the psuedo-creationism that is intelligent design, which the religious right in the U.S. is trying to peddle to overcome the church/state issue? Wowza.
And to think I thought John wasn’t conservative! Shame on me. With policy disasters like this, banishing the word from his election signs is the least of his worries. If he was looking to throw a sop to a conservative base that felt abandoned by The John Tory Team, boy howdy, did he pick a bad issue. I don't even recall Mike Harris taking a run at this one. Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers
4 comments:
I was on the phone when I read that headline and I think my comment was 'holy shit Dad, I think John Tory just handed the election to McGuinty.'
I didn't like his idea of funding religious schools, I much preferred the route that Newfoundland took in the 90s but I can see the political gain in his stance. But for whatever gain he might have had, he just lost it with those comments. Quite a few left wing votes just went to the Liberal Party with those comments.
As I said, I can see him wanting to hand a little carrot or something to his right-wing base, but this wasn't the way to do it. The next polling numbers will be interesting.
Now it all depends on what McGuinty says. But he looks like a lock.
Tory committed political suicide.
The only dinosaurs in this debate are those who think that in a multicultral society it is ok to let catholics have publicly funded religious schools (where they teach creationism). Dalton McGuinty is one of those dinosaurs.
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