I somewhat agree with you. I think American education is being rent by the extreme right and the extreme left. But if you follow these threads enough, it's clear that the issue has nothing to do with evolution. It's more a case of "science is threatening my fragile religious beliefs". It's happened before; it'll happen again.
BTW, it isn't just conservatives who sometimes have a taste for junk science - how about the population bomb, silent spring (DDT), global warming and junk science for the litigation lottery?