Lawmakers investigate evolution speech

Oh, the stupid. It burns.

It really is hard to believe that the Oklahoma legislature has nothing better to do than this.

Early this month, the University of Oklahoma hosted a speech by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins - a noted expert on the science of evolution. This sent right-wing lawmakers into a screeching shitfit. In an attempt to avert the speech, legislators tried to bar Dawkins from delivering it.

Lawmakers' stupidity in trying to ban Dawkins was almost enough to make one scratch their own face off with their keys.

But the silliness continues.

Now the legislature is launching an investigation into the speech and into the university for daring to allow the event.

Just to be clear: the legislature can't do this. There have been cases dating back decades that say lawmakers can't investigate speeches just because they disagree with them.

Conservatives are always crying about how "big, mean libs" are stifling academic freedom. This story, however, proves that suppression of academic liberty comes not from the left, but from the right.

Ironically, the legislative resolution opposing Dawkins's speech said that the university "should be open to all ideas" and "not indoctrinate students in one-sided study and thinking." But by trying to disinvite Dawkins from the state, the resolution itself was stifling ideas and being one-sided. This resolution went on to say that evolution itself was "indoctrination."

Do lawmakers not have anything more important to work on than this Stone Age hypocrisy?

(Source: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/06/1726211;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/oklahoma-legislature-inve_b_177473.html)