I could not have made this up!
(h/t PZ)
Richard Dawkins has been invited to speak at University of Oklahoma, as part of their year of Darwin series of lectures, presentations and whatever.
An Oklahoma legislator is trying to pass a resolution banning Richard Dawkins from attending. Why? Because “here in Oklahoma we believe in freedom of ideas and we want to encourage all ideas to be represented, but that Richard Dawkins fellow is just stuck on one idea and he pisses off the religious folks, so we don’t want him here.”
No, seriously, go read the entire resolution. It is an amazing work of confusion. On the one hand they want to encourage diversity and then immediately ban anyone who doesn’t do diversity the same way they do.
How insane is that?
First off, the idea that a state representative would be so caught up with his real work that he would have time to suck the dicks of his religious button pushers, but this resolution is so incredibly offensive that I hope it passes! Can you imagine the uproar resulting from an entire state would try to ban the likes of Richard Dawkins simply because of his stated opinions? His opinions are strong, and rightly without apology or soft-pedaling, but scientifically valid (which apparently scares the Okie fundagelicals because they don’t get science there), but have you heard him speak? He is one of the most eloquent and gentlemanly speakers around. He knows his stuff and doesn’t need to resort to the theatrics of an evangelist because he has facts to back him up.
The bigger problem is the same as when the U.K. banned Geert Wilders a couple weeks ago. The Muslims were upset over his movie (Fitna — exposing parts of Islam for their violence) and threatened violence if he entered, simply because they were offended by his opinions. Instead of putting the Muslims in their place and teaching them they have to accept that other people don’t always agree, and telling them they’d be jailed if they reacted with violence, they told Wilders he couldn’t come in the country.
if Oklahoma REALLY cares about diversity why are they trying to STOP diversity? Can anyone possibly explain this to me? (No, really… I dare you to try)
