Whiffle-Brains Attack First Amendment

by Molly Ivins

However, it's a great nation still prone to occasional befuddlement. Take a couple of First Amendment flappettes of recent vintage.

As you have doubtlessly heard, the Kansas Board of Education voted 6 to 4 in late August not to require evolution and the big-bang theory in the state's science curriculum. In part, this is only evidence of the much-noted tactic of the Christian right of running "stealth candidates" for down-ballot public offices. Beyond that, it is evidence of invincible ignorance, failure to understand the scientific method and the curious notion that a factual discovery of science could somehow alter our ethical standards.

The Scopes trial over teaching evolution took place 74 years ago, and here we are still having to deal with creationism, even though the fossil record supporting the theory of evolution (and of course it is only a theory -- nothing in science is considered proved beyond new evidence) gets filled in more almost every week.

More dangerous are the pseudo-scientific attacks on evolution, not citing biblical metaphor but attacking the perfectly legitimate practice of extrapolating the appearance of an extinct creature from a fossil fragment. Pseudo "documentaries" attacking paleontology are shown on right-wing cable TV, using the curious notion that because more remains to be known about evolution it's not worth studying.

As though limiting science weren't a silly enough notion, now the literalists are attacking Harry Potter, the student wizard in J.K. Rowling's delightful books, on the theory that the books promote Satanism.

Sigh. These are apparently the same people who keep trying to get "The Three Little Pigs" removed from libraries on the grounds that talking animals are satanic, which would leave rather a large hole in children's literature.

I'm sure this strikes most of you as silly beyond all permission, but these folks have bullied libraries all over the country -- and they occasionally win, too. I'm not sure why imagination is so threatening to these people.

As though dealing with such whiffle-brains weren't trying enough, the mayor of New York is now demonstrating his failure to grasp the First Amendment in the already overpublicized matter of his feud with the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Rudy Giuliani may indeed be acting from purely political motives, as the media have constantly reported, but this is not a political matter. It's clearly a First Amendment case, and the only shocking thing about it is the media's failure to recognize it as such.

Victor Kovner, one of the leading First Amendment lawyers in New York City, had to spend almost a week before he could find a client to sign a brilliant amicus brief he wrote for the case. When the Metropolitan Museum finally signed on, so did all the other cultural institutions in New York, including the Bronx Zoo. A lawyer in Kovner's office observed that the zoo must be interested in the elephant dung aspect. (For what it's worth, I think "Virgin With Elephant Dung" -- not the real name -- is a lot prettier than the dissected shark in the same show.)

Still on bizarre fronts of the culture wars, it's worth noting that the on-line magazine Salon has reported that the final version of the official investigation into the tragedy at Columbine High School finds that perps Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were never part of the "Trench Coat Mafia." Nor did they target "jocks, minorities or Christians."

Whatever ailed those sick kids, they were all-purpose haters; in the ravings they left behind, they rail against minorities AND whites, praise Hitler AND condemn racism. Now watch how long it takes for the correction to catch up with the initial misreporting. "Never" is a good guess.

All of this caused the Minneapolis Star Tribune to editorialize that these are the best and worst of times. "Surely American culture has become more vulgar: the language, the messages on T-shirts, the loutish talk shows, the crude movies and music, the rowdy audiences at sporting events, the road rage, the gun worship, the gruesome video games, the sex-obsessed sitcoms, the general meanness that seems to escalate to domestic abuse and to verbal and physical assault."

But at the same time, crime is down, museums flourish (even without dissected sharks) and young people are into melodic music. Sure, a lot of TV is dreadful, but there's some excellent stuff on, too, as the critic John Leonard has been telling us for a long time. And there is as much altruism as egotism, if you look for it -- it just doesn't make the headlines.

What interests me is the attempt to use this duality for political purposes. A writer for the Hudson Institute's American Outlook suggests that we suffer from cultural disunity and must soon choose between the Judeo-Christian tradition and what he sees as an emerging multiculturalism in which all values are relative and tolerance (of anything) is regarded as the greatest virtue.

This brings us to the simplest of all First Amendment arguments. The reason that the First Amendment protects dreck as well as genius is not because dreck and genius in art are equally good and should both be tolerated. It is to protect our right to vigorously denounce dreck -- or to defend Harry Potter against Muggles.