Admitted: Intelligent Design is Creationism

It’s a lovely thing to watch Christian fundamentalists when the official script of their theocratic crusade slips and they accidentally tell the truth.

At the end of last week, the truth about the campaign to force intelligent design theology into Pennsylvania’s Dover Area Schools science classrooms finally was revealed in a form that no one could deny. Bill Buckingham, a former member of the Dover school board, has been prominent proponent of shoving intelligent design theology into the science curriculum. As part of his push for intelligent design theology, he has insisted that intelligent design is science and not religion.

Conspicuously, Buckingham has made several public denials that intelligent design is the same thing as Christian Creationism. Buckingham has insisted that the’s never supported teaching Creationism in the Dover Area Schools.

Now, video footage has been made available to the people of the Dover Area school district showing that Bill Buckingham did indeed, as part of his campaign to support intelligent design theology, promote teaching Creationism in the Dover Area Schools. While a camera was filming, Buckingham clearly stated that his efforts to change the science curriculum in the schools was about countering evolution with “something else, such as Creationism.”

So, it came out from Buckingham’s own lips: The campaign to get intelligent design into the Dover Area Schools was really a campaign for “Creationism”. In Bill Buckingham’s mind, the two are the same thing.

Of course, Bill Buckingham didn’t want anyone to know that. So, he and the other members of the school board worked hard not to use the word “Creationism” when they forced science teachers to denounce evolution in front of public school students, and promote the religious belief of intelligent design.

But then, it seems clear that Bill Buckingham would do just about anything to get fundamentalist Christian ideology into the public schools. He certainly seemed willing to lie. It’s not just the Creationism thing. There’s also the small matter of Buckingham’s involvement in a behind-the-scenes religious conspiracy around Dover to replace science with religion at the local high school.

It seems that some mysterious entity donated 850 dollars toward the purchase of 60 copies of the book Of Pandas and People. Buckingham and other members of the school board required the book, which promotes the religious belief of intelligent design, to be read by public school students. But where did that 850 dollars come from? Making an earlier legal deposition, Bill Buckingham insisted he had no idea. Last week, while being questioned under oath, Buckingham admitted that he knew all along exactly where the money came from. The 850 dollars came from his own church, which had been part of a secret campaign to get Christian theology taught in the local high school.

The trial over the promotion of intelligent design theology by the Dover Area Schools has forever blown the cover of the intelligent design movement. Intelligent design is so thickly mixed up with right wing Christianity that it has become impossible to distinguish the two. Thanks to Bill Buckingham, the clumsy combination comes right out of the preacher’s mouth.