What’s that sound? Why, it’s Senator Rick Santorum backing away slowly from a previously held position and also putting distance between himself and former allies the Thomas More Law Center, and the (hee! hee!) former Dover, PA school board.
It’s only to be expected; that’s why they call him “Election Year Rick” in his state.
PHILADELPHIA – U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum plans to cut ties with the Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center, which defended the Dover Area School District’s policy mandating the teaching of intelligent design in science classes dealing with evolution.
Santorum, R-Pa., earlier praised the district for “attempting to teach the controversy of evolution.”
But Wednesday, a day after a federal judge ruled the district’s policy on intelligent design unconstitutional, he said he was troubled by testimony indicating religion motivated some board members to adopt the policy.
“I thought the Thomas More Law Center made a huge mistake in taking this case and in pushing this case to the extent they did,” said Santorum, a member of the center’s advisory board.
The Thomas More Law Center was started by Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, a backer of conservative Catholic causes, and says its seeks to defend the religious rights of Christians.
Let’s see if we can translate Senator Santorum’s dilemma: what happened was the Dover ID-iots screwed up. They’d been carefully and repeatedly coached by the Discovery Institute to “teach the controversy” and undermine science education by casting doubt on evolutionary theory. However, they went too far – they mandated that teachers had to read a statement, rather than suggesting that they get a carefully led “discussion” of “intelligent design” as a scientific theory every bit as valid as natural selection.
Santorum couldn’t be associated with the Dover ID-iots, and he was pissed off at the Thomas More Law Center for not riding herd on them better. Then, the Doverites broke the sekrit rule about ot-nay alking-tay out-abay eligion-ray in our nations ools-skay, which is why Judge Jones nailed them to the wall as an example to God-botherers to mend their ways (and also why the intelligently designed voters of Dover kicked them out of office). And also Santorum was pissed at Thomas More for allying themselves with those ID-iots in Dover in the first place, instead of with some smart Kansans who’re better at pussyfooting around the whole eligion-ray issue-hay.
It’s official: Rick Santorum is backing away from the appearance of being a religious zealot, just in time for the holidays. Happy electioneering, Senator Rick! A pleasant Festivus to you, sir!