Inquirer Editorial: O'Donnell logic flawed

The kerfuffle over Christine O'Donnell's loose grasp of the First Amendment obscures a more disturbing point - she would allow "intelligent design" to be taught in public schools.

The Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware elicited guffaws in a debate with Democrat Chris Coons for seeming not to know that separation of church and state is set forth in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

O'Donnell later said her only point was that the exact phrase separation of church and state is not found in the Constitution. And technically she's correct.

But O'Donnell seems willfully blind to the plain meaning of the Establishment Clause, which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The Constitution also forbids religious tests as a qualification for any government officeholder.

The phrase separation of church and state worked its way into court rulings much later.

But it's been clear for centuries that the Constitution forbade government from imposing religion on its citizens, and from requiring public officials to follow any religion.

That's the real problem for O'Donnell, who has referred to evolution as a "myth" and argues that local school boards should be allowed to require the teaching of intelligent design or creationism in public schools. Coons correctly calls intelligent design "religious doctrine" instead of science.

Intelligent design holds that life is too complex to have evolved naturally, and that a conscious being such as God must have created it. Schools are free to choose to teach that as part of a religious curriculum, but it has no place in a public-school science class.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that a Louisiana law requiring creation be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because that law intended to advance a particular religion.

In 2005, a conservative federal judge blocked the school board in Dover, Pa., from requiring teachers to teach intelligent design. "ID is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory," the judge ruled.

Beyond this issue, courts on both sides of the political spectrum have turned aside efforts to promote religion in public schools. And the principle set forth in the Establishment Clause has been the solid foundation for those rulings.

Less artfully than her like-minded conservative allies, O'Donnell is trying to erode the separation of church and state. All she managed to do in this episode was to expose how little she knows about the Constitution and several of its amendments.

This election year has seen many incumbent lawmakers lose their seats, and more will follow in November. O'Donnell has already done her part by defeating highly respected Rep. Michael N. Castle (R., Del.) in the GOP Senate primary.

But voters shouldn't get too carried away with a "throw the bums out" mind-set if the alternative is sending candidates like O'Donnell to the halls of power in Washington.