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Karl Rove is a master at using evangelical Christian leaders for his own political purposes. In the last presidential campaign, Bush’s political guru revved up evangelical fervor by pounding the podiums against gay marriage. Four out of five of these church voters then turned out for George W.
But lo, and behold: Church leaders now complain that they got nothing in return! The Bushites, in total control of congress, didn’t even bring a bill to the floor to deal with this flash-point issue. Evangelical leaders felt betrayed.
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But, wait – very quietly, the Bushites actually have “been there” for Biblical literalists, taking a fundamentalist stand in, of all places, the Grand Canyon. When visitors come to this geological wonder, many ask: How old is it? This is where the Bush favor to Biblical literalism comes in. Rather than give the best answer of science – 5 million years – Bush political appointees in the National Park Service have commanded Grand Canyon rangers to suspend their belief in geology and say, “no comment.”
While park visitors can’t get an answer from rangers, they can get one from the Park Service’s book store, which is peddling a Christian fundamentalist text asserting that this wondrous natural phenomenon is not the creature of geology – but of Noah’s flood, thus making it a mere 6,000 thousand years old.
In 2003, Bush’s Park Service brass promised congress that it would promptly review the legitimacy of hawking such blatant, anti-science proselytizing. However, records show that officials never conducted a review. More than three years later, the creationist book is still on sale and park rangers still are not allowed to give an honest answer to the question of the Grand Canyon’s age.
This is Jim Hightower saying… And that’s what evangelicals got for supporting Bush.
Sources:
“How Old Is The Park Service? Park Service Won’t Say,” PEER Press Release, December 28, 2006.