Flies
on the Courtroom Walls (Part
Two) • Part One
by Judge Darrell
White (Retired)
 This
state legislation was declared “unconstitutional” by an unelected
SCOTUS1 in a 1980 per curium (unsigned)
opinion, containing this lamentable declaration: "If the
posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all,
it will be to induce the school children to read, meditate upon, perhaps
to venerate and obey the Commandments. However desirable this might
be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective
under the establishment clause."2 Interestingly,
an inscription the Kentucky Legislature ordered placed beneath the posters
announced their educational purpose: "The secular
application of the Ten Commandments is clearly seen in its adoption as
the fundamental legal code of Western Civilization and the Common Law
of the United States." That this is an historically accurate
statement is borne out by constitutional expert Justice Joseph Story’s
observation, "There has never been a period of history, in which
the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as laying at its foundation."3 Public
outrage – but no impeachments – followed the decision.
Then in 1996, only
a year before that infamous Kentucky murder rampage that targeted students
at a school prayer gathering, Princeton professor John DiIulio, along
with former anti-drug officials Bill Bennett and John P. Walters, published
a sobering book entitled Body Count. The book described "the coming superpredators," juvenile
offenders who could become the most conscienceless, brutal criminals
in recent history, because they have grown up "fearing neither
the stigma of arrest, pains of imprisonment, nor the pangs of conscience." What
a crop!
 How long will we
continue in this downward spiral? Until men of
courage begin to connect the dots and act …. Ideas
have consequences, and some bad ideas produce really bad consequences. Darrell
Scott, father of Columbine murder victim Rachel Scott, has produced solid
evidence showing how the uncritical teaching of Darwinian evolutionism
is one such bad idea. Anyone wondering why Eric Harris chose to
wear a “NATURAL SELECTION” t-shirt
on his day of infamy should find Scott’s Open Letter to Educators
to be a real eye-opener.4
In another touch of
irony, it will likely be America’s judicial system
that must sort through the aftermath that we can expect such future waves
of senseless violence to produce. Victimized parents will, of course,
seek to hold accountable the purveyors of the poisonous information that
fuels such rampages. Known as “infotorts,” these new
causes of action are based on the finding that information can harm people
and that under some conditions the source of the information should be
liable for that harm5.
 More
than 150 years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who carefully
studied American culture, noted that "scarcely any political question
arises . . . that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question."6 The
two cases discussed above reflect the growing public sentiment that it’s
time to separate science data from science philosophy.7 Americans
weary of amoral outcomes are coming to the same conclusion as one incisive
writer that “Evolutionists have ‘Physics Envy.’ They
tell the public that the science behind evolution is the same science that
sent people to the moon and cures diseases. It’s not. The
science behind evolution is not empirical, but forensic. Because evolution
took place in history, its scientific investigations are after the fact—no
testing, no observations, no repeatability, no falsification, nothing at all
like physics. … I think this is what the public discerns—that
evolution is just a bunch of just-so stories disguised as legitimate
science.”8
As Mark Twain observed, “A lie can go halfway around the world while
the truth is still putting on its shoes.” But, to quote Founder
John Adams, “facts are stubborn things.” The fact is that
no court ruling can change the inexplicably complex digital code in our DNA
about which students need to know. Nor can a judicial opinion remove
the breathtakingly intricate molecular machines from the cell.9 The
Lord of those flies and the Creator of the universe is still – as my
children like to say – “large and in charge.”10
And even a fly can – bzzzzzzz – sense
that intelligent change is in the air!
1. Supreme Court of the United States.
2. Stone v. Graham, 1980449 U.S. 39, 101
S.Ct. 192, 66 L.Ed. 199 (1980).
3. Extract from Joseph
Story’s 1829
inaugural address as Dane Professor of Law at Harvard University. Perry
Miller, ed., The Legal Mind in America (New York: Doubleday, 1962),
p. 178.
4. http://www.judgewhite.com/docs/dscottletter.pdf
5. See http://www.rbs2.com/infotort.htm for
one analysis of this emerging area of the law.
6. Alexis DeTocqueville, I Democracy
in America 280 (Vintage Edition 1945, reprinted 1990).
7. Since Congress’ 2001 pronouncement
that a quality science education should teach students to distinguish the data
and testable theories of science from the religious and philosophical claims
made in the name of science, state boards of education in Ohio and Kansas have
begun to require that students be taught the weaknesses of Darwinism. And
the Alabama State Board of Education continues (since 1995) to insist that
an insert be placed in the front of that state’s biology textbooks warning
students of the textbooks’ limitations. See http://www.judgewhite.com/alabama.html.
8. John Chaikowsky, “Geology
vs. Physics,” Geotimes,
50, 6, 2005.
9. Dr. Michael Behe, an expert witness
at the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, has noted that
the trial judge’s decision“…is regrettable,
but in the end does not impact the realities of biology, which
are not amenable to adjudication. On December 21, 2005, as before,
the cell is run by amazingly complex, functional machinery that in
any other context would immediately be recognized as designed. On December
21, 2005, as before, there are no non-design explanations for the
molecular machinery of life, only wishful speculations and Just-So
stories.”
10. And if scripture is trustworthy,
we can be assured that He judges judges and their judgments! Ecclesiastes
12:14. See also Psalm 2 and Hebrews 9:27.
Darrell
White is a father of seven children, a grandfather, a retired trial
judge with over twenty years of elective service, and a retired Judge
Advocate officer who served as military judge for the Louisiana Army
National Guard. He
lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where he consults on family-strengthening
initiatives (www.lafamilyforum.org)
and hurricane disaster relief activities (www.prccompassion.org). He
has served on the advisory board of Columbine Redemption, (http://www.rachelscott.com/ColumbineRedemption). On
the same day Terri Schiavo died, he founded the Retired Judges
of America (www.retiredjudges.org),
claiming God’s promise of Isaiah 1:26, "I will restore your
judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward
you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city."
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