TXsharon has compiled the blog posts from across the Texblogosphere and beyond regarding the dismissal of TEA science director Chris Comer, and the backstory is there in any of the links. I'll quote Steven D at Booman Tribune for the summary outrage:
If merely forwarding an email about an upcoming speaker on the issue of evolution versus "intelligent design" theory gets you shitcanned in Texas, imagine what would have happened if poor Ms. Comer had had the audacity to suggest that she herself accepted the validity of the theory of evolution? Tarred and feathered, or burned at the stake for heresy? You tell me.
And it's no surprise a Bush appointee was the person behind this outrageous decision. As the Austin-American Statesman declared in its editorial about this case, firing someone for even mentioning that intelligent design and/or creationism have "critics" smacks of Soviet-era purges. Or of the Catholic Church in the 17th century suppressing Galileo's writings about the science that supported the "theory" that the earth orbited the sun. In short, it's absurd.
Yet that is what the most extreme Christian conservatives would have us become: A nation of ignoramuses, blind to any truth other than that "revealed" by scripture as (presumably) interpreted by our designated "Spiritual Leaders." That teachers were fired in the early 20th century for teaching evolution was understandable, if incredibly shortsighted, bigoted and stupid. That we are still having these debates at the beginning of the 21st century with all we have learned since the Scopes Monkey trial boggles my imagination.
