I love you, but . . . (Creationist style)

"I love you, but . . ." are four words that can strike fear into a loved one's heart! I think I have found the Creationist version.

"I am not going to let my creationist views influence me, but . . ."

That is a paraphrase from new Irving school board trustee Heather Ashley from a Dallas News article "Irving ISD trustee says despite personal beliefs, she won't push intelligent design". She says that she is a creationist and supports the teaching of intelligent design – though she knows she can't have any impact at the local level on the teaching of evolution.

"I am not going to, as a school board member, set curriculum that teaches only one point of view," she said. "I think we should have the possibility of teachers exposing students to different perspectives, which should include intelligent design."

Isn't she saying 'I am not going to let my beliefs influence me, but I think teachers should expose students to different perspectives' Huh? The only good thing about her statement is she didn't call Intelligent Design a 'theory', it's been reduced to a 'perspective'.

Am I reading to much into this? Maybe I am, but it's innocuous-sounding words like this that can start local problems, anyone remember Dover? OK, some of their statements weren't so innocuous, but that was later after they were on the Board that they went a bit haywire. I doubt anyone who stood up and said "Jesus Christ died for our sins, isn't it time someone stood up for him?" would have gotten elected. How many times did Don McLeroy say that he would not be using his Creationist beliefs as President of the Texas State School Board? And we saw how 'honest' he was about that. She also said that her goal is to serve the community. I sincerely hope that is true! I admire that she is straight forward in her beliefs, rather than some stealth Creationist that we have seen in other places. I also wish her the best serving that community!

I love you Irving TX, but I also hope you help Ms. Ashely hold to her goal of serving you and not her belief system.