As regular PT readers know, Ohio was a primary battle ground for the Disco Institute’s attempt to inject ID creationist trash “science” into the state science standards and model curriculum under the deceptive rubric “critical analysis of evolution”. That attempt was defeated in February. Patricia Princehouse, leader of Ohio Citizens for Science, was a mainstay in resisting that effort over five years. Now Patricia has received the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award from the Playboy Foundation for her efforts.
Patricia’s acceptance speech is posted at The Nation site. From it:
People ask me, Why pour so much energy into protecting science education? Why not fight for literacy generally or any of a thousand other educational issues? I have two answers. One is easy: I know about evolution, so it makes sense that I would work on what I know best. The second is harder to grasp. And that is that freedom of religion is the bedrock foundation of liberty in this country. If we allow certain special-interest religious groups to co-opt the public school science classroom, to use it as a vehicle for converting children to religious views their parents don’t hold, if we allow them to spout outright lies about the nature and content of science, what do we really have left? If you can lie about science and get away with it, you can lie about anything. (bolding added)
That’s why we do this stuff.