| Mainstream Media | Bias Revealed! |
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| The writer has defined her topic in such a way as to be able to readily associate ID (Intelligent Design) with an exclusively religious perspective.
This is a major tenet of the press treatment of this issue: anyone who supports teaching evolution as theory (which it is) rather than fact (as it currently is taught in most public schools), must have religious motives. Cleverly, the writer just in choosing a title has created an environment where this isn't debatable, but rather understood. The problem is that, in fact, this is a major misrepresentation! In the Dover School Board's own words: "The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence." |
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By: MARTHA RAFFAELE (Wed, Dec/01/2004)
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| DOVER, Pa. - Glenda Lentz carries a wide selection of secular and religious merchandise among the gifts and greeting cards in her small shop on Main Street. | Fulfilling the purpose outlined above, religion is introduced in the first sentence. |
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| One window of Taylor's Treasures - named for Lentz's 7-year-old daughter - is filled with two decorative Christmas banners, one emblazoned with Frosty the Snowman and the other with a dove holding an olive branch in its beak, hovering over the word "Peace." | Echoing the dichotomy of "secular and religious merchandise" from the previous paragraph, now a dichotomy of images Frosty and a dove are introduced as kind of a "holster" into which the author tries to fit an "evolution" and "intelligent design" dichotomy in the next paragraph. |
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| Lentz, 36, similarly believes that in Dover's public high school, science teachers can accommodate Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and "intelligent design," a concept that attributes the universe's complexity to the work of an undefined intelligent force. As a Christian, she was raised to believe, and is raising Taylor and her younger sister to believe, that God created the universe. | The one in quotes automatically has less credence.... This sentence clearly assumes "God created the universe" to be a fiction, and is constructed to make this appear as multigenerational willfull indoctrination. |
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| "I don't judge anybody for their life or their lifestyle, but I want to be able to express myself and my lifestyle the way I want ... my kids are going to be the ones being taught at that school," said Lentz, who wore a denim shirt with a small Christian fish symbol embroidered on the pocket. | Three of the first four paragraphs take pains to point out the lady being interviewed is a Christian. |
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| The Dover school board's decision in October to require the teaching of intelligent design in biology class as an alternative to evolution - an apparent first in the United States - has placed the community under the national microscope. | Read the Dover School Board's: PRESS RELEASE FOR BIOLOGY CURRICULUM--updated 11/19/04 |
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| Dover's decision has raised the ire of critics who contend intelligent design is just another term for the Biblical notion of creationism, which is based on a literal reading of the book of Genesis. | |
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| At least two other districts have recently become embroiled in the debate over teaching evolution. Educators in Grantsburg, Wis., were outraged by a curriculum revision that would allow the teaching of creationism in public schools, and a federal court judge in Georgia is considering the constitutionality of a suburban Atlanta district's decision to include a warning sticker about evolution in biology textbooks. | This key mis-representation is another important tenet to the press postion regarding this topic: there is a "debate over teaching evolution" and it's corollary: one of the two sides of this issue is "anti-evolution" ... in fact, and as the press release linked above says: "The state standards require students to learn about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and to eventually take a standardized test of which evolution is a part." So no-one here is debating whether or not to teach evolution.
The "curriculum revision" is "a recently approved policy that calls for scientific views other than evolution to be represented in classrooms. Superintendent Joni Burgin says the new policy does not call for the teaching of creationism or other religious concepts." according to the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN) - Nov 23, 2004. " |
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| From Lentz's gift shop to a plant nursery on the outskirts of town, the prevailing sentiment of townspeople interviewed this week mirrors the school board's 6-3 vote on Oct. 18, reflecting the values of a community whose central square is anchored on one corner by an evangelical Lutheran church built in 1899. | |
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| At the heart of the district is the borough of Dover, a compact community of roughly 1,800 residents where small, family-owned businesses, such as Lentz's gift shop, share sidewalk space with old brick and wood-frame houses. | |
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| The borough is surrounded by Dover Township, which contains vast swaths of farmland interspersed with newer suburban developments and a busy commercial strip south of the borough. According to the 2000 census, the township's population swelled by 15 percent since 1990 to more than 18,000 residents. Both the borough and the township are predominantly white. | |
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| The township was originally formed in 1743, an agricultural community settled by Germans seeking to escape religious persecution, and the borough was incorporated more than 100 years later, according to historical records. | Well, that explains the Lutheran Church. |
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| Today, Dover is a bedroom community for residents employed in York, six miles to the southeast, and to a lesser extent Harrisburg, about 20 miles to the north. | |
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| About half a block up Main Street from Calvary Lutheran Church, Nianna Cullum and her 12-year-old daughter, Nerissa, were wrapping glittering tinsel garlands around the pillars of their front porch before noon Monday. Nerissa, a seventh-grader, was home from middle school because, like many other rural districts, Dover closes school on the opening day of deer season. | |
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| Cullum had never heard of intelligent design before the board changed the science curriculum, but supports its inclusion. It bothers her that in Nerissa's social-studies class students cannot use the term "B.C.," or before Christ, to refer to ancient time periods. Instead, "B.C.E," or before Common Era, is used. | This is rather off topic, but B.C. doesn't generically refer to ancient time periods, as is implied; many ancient time periods occurred A.D. (After [Christ's] Death). B.C. and A.D. are two very specific temporal designations neither of which depend on Christ being a religious figure, but only an historical figure known to have lived within a specific time parameter.
This would outrage, not just bother me! That the religiophobes have been given the latitude to replace established academic time referents with some lame generalization refering loosely to everything that came before whatever they're calling the "common era" ... all in the name of whatever it is they're so deathly afraid of! Calling a theory a theory will not harm the quality of education; eradicating a person from history because we don't agree with what he said turns education into indoctrination and undermines free thought. This is the real First Amendment threat. |
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| "I think it's good. Children need different views to make their own opinion," said Cullum, a 40-year-old waitress. | |
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| Steve Farrell, a Dover High School alumnus who co-owns a nursery and garden center with his brother, welcomes the change as a small step toward "bringing God back into the school." He said it reflects the growing political power of conservative Christians. | In case you missed all the heavy-handed innuendo in the article, here the writer has gotten to quote someone directly. |
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| Although President Bush lost Pennsylvania to Democrat John Kerry, he drew strong support from the state's vast central region and won York County, which includes Dover, by a nearly 2-1 margin. | This seems highly irrelevant. |
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| Farrell became a born-again Christian 3 1/2 years ago and said anyone who would fight the intelligent-design mandate is "taking a stand against God." | |
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| "For someone to stand in the face of that ... I wonder what fear these people are living in that they don't want that taught," he said. | |
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| So far, school administrators have declined to comment on the new curriculum, aside from issuing a statement Nov. 19 that said officials would monitor the science lessons "to make sure no one is promoting but also not inhibiting religion." They said they wanted to provide balanced view of evolution and not present religious beliefs. | |
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| Jan Eisenhart, a retired surveyor and a member of the borough council, questions whether the board truly had to community's interests in mind when it adopted the science curriculum change. | |
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| "They have their agenda. When people get tired of it, they'll vote them out," said Eisenhart, 68, who previously served on the school board. | |
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| The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has said the intelligent-design mandate may clash with the constitutional separation of church and state and is reviewing the matter. Witold Walczak, the ACLU's legal director, said whether the community at large favors the policy is legally irrelevant. | |
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| "If the issue is whether the policy violates the First Amendment ban on mixing religion and government, it either does or it doesn't. It's not subject to a vote, no more than we would vote on whether people should be allowed to keep slaves or women needed to stay home," Walczak said. | The First Amendment doesn't ban mixing religion and government; it bans government from restricting the free practice of religion ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..."). The ACLU, in typical fashion, turns this on its head to further it's own extreme agenda. |
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| Jean Nagle, who moved to the district 36 years ago from Philadelphia when her husband's company transferred him, considers the intelligent-design policy an "embarrassment" to the community. | She feels it's an "embarrassment" because she thinks the policy introduces religion into the public school teachings (see two paragraphs hence). It does not. |
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| Nagle, 61, didn't feel particularly welcome as a newcomer. She often found herself at odds with school officials because she felt the district was providing an inadequate gifted-education program for her daughter, who graduated in 1986. | |
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| "I would be very upset if my daughter was still in the school system. I don't think that religion belongs in the school," she said as she waited for her laundry to dry at the White Dove Laundromat. | Again, the measure does not introduce religion into the school, in spite of what the press and the ACLU would have you believe. Just review the Press Release linked above, and you will see this. |
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| Lentz, the shop owner, said although she understands the intelligent-design mandate might not be embraced by everyone in the community, she feels that the loudest complaints are coming from outside organization, such as the ACLU. | |
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| "I wish that these outside groups would leave Dover alone," she said. | |
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--- On the Net: Dover Area School District: http://www.dover.k12.pa.us American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania: http://www.aclupa.org/ --- Martha Raffaele covers education for The Associated Press in Harrisburg. | |
| © Copyright 2004 AJJE Enterprises | |
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