Center sued for failing to show creationist film

As an economic populist above all else, I know I have to pick my battles in combating the cheap elitism of the dominionist monolith. And this story is so absurd that it almost makes me wish I didn't read the news when I got home the other day.

In Los Angeles, the California Science Center is facing a frivolous lawsuit from a right-wing think tank called the American Freedom Alliance. The think tank is suing because the center failed to show a so-called documentary that promotes "intelligent design" pseudoscience and attacks evolution.

Why does the American Freedom Alliance expect a publicly funded science center to show a creationist movie anyway?

The suit certainly has no First Amendment grounds. Expecting the center to be required to show this film is like if I expected it to be required to show my YouTube videos such as my 'Brady Bunch' parody or the Peace Bike racing a street cleaning vehicle.

We have a system that's based on the free exchange of ideas. It's a human right. But that doesn't mean we can compel a public science center to show a particular film. Can we sue a school if it replaces old textbooks with updated ones?

It turns out though that the California Science Center canceled the film because the American Freedom Alliance violated its rental agreement - not because of the movie's contents. Yet the American Freedom Alliance is crying that this is just an excuse by the facility to "censor" the film.

It gets sillier: The plaintiffs filed this lawsuit right before they appeared on Fox News advocating tort "reform." How ironic is that?

(Source: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-science-center29-2009dec29,0,6400745.story)