A Merry-Go-Round of Hypocrisy

In schools today, it is commonly accepted that the theory of evolution is true, and teachers everywhere tell their students that this theory is the explanation for our existence. In the defense of the separation of church and state, teachers are forbidden to teach other theories, such as creationism.

Ironically, a debate of a similar nature went on eighty-five years ago in Dayton, Tennessee at a time when, conversely, it was illegal to teach the theory of evolution. A young biology teacher named John T. Scopes, looking for a chance to defend his point, openly admitted to teaching the theory of evolution to his students, and was quickly arrested. He, together with his defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, and The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) hoped that this would be their chance to challenge the constitutionality of the Tennessee Law. Their chance proved unsuccessful, and Scopes was convicted. And so the first amendment was disregarded, for the Tennessee law was a law directly abridging freedom of speech. John T. Scopes should have had a right to make his students aware of the theory of evolution as another view—not forcing his students to believe it, degrading them if they did not believe it, but simply presenting it.

Many people today, and for that matter, many people in this class, will argue that Scopes was a martyr for evolution, a man unconstitutionally treated and wholly misused. These same people will argue that creationism should not be allowed to be taught in schools today. What is the difference then? They are not, then, defending freedom of speech, but only their own beliefs. A common argument is that teaching creationism breaks the wall of separation between church and state. This argument is commonly parroted by uninformed students, who, if they would research the topic for themselves, would quickly discover that the separation of church and state means something very different. The separation of church and state doesn’t mean that religious beliefs can’t be presented in a school, which they are today, since evolution is just as much a religious belief as Christianity, Buddhism, or Judaism. When Jefferson, who was not a Christian himself, wrote the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom in 1786, regarding it as his second greatest achievement, he stated this:

An excerpt from the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom:
I. Well aware:

•That all attempts to influence it by temporal [civil] punishments or burdens or by civil incapacitations [lack of fitness for office], tend only to…[produce] habits of hypocrisy and meanness and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who, being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate [spread] it by coercions [force] on either, as was in his Almighty power to do;

•That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical [religious], who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion [rule] over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible [ones], and, such, endeavoring to impose them on others, have established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;

•That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than [on] our opinions in physics or geometry;

•That truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, [for] errors [cease] to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

Clearly, when Jefferson wrote of The Separation of Church and State, he didn’t mean that it was wrong to teach about religious beliefs in public, but wrong to force people to believe these teachings or adhere to a particular religion chosen by the government. Today we ride a merry-go-round of hypocrisy—we defend Scopes and we rage on creationism, then we belittle Scopes and praise creationism. Round and round we go, holding tight to our own stubborn beliefs, and forgetting completely about Freedom of Speech and the true meaning of Separation of Church and State.